
xC^<<dL*4Z^t/&i, Jr 



DIAGRAM OF THE CHURCHES. 



illustrated by a supposed interview between the 

Armenian's all-wise and omnipotent god of the 

universe and his armenian ministers. 



!> 



S. M. CARLTON, M. D, 



HEFDEBSOIT, E "U SK CO., T E X .A. S 









I2QJH-4 



3IIDDLETOWN, N. Y.: 

G, Beebe's Sons, Publishers, 

1884. 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONORStS 

WASHINGTON 






' ' Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by 

S. M. CARLTON, M.D., 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington." 



PBEFACE 



Fearless of the scrutiny of men or devils, we submit 
the following treatise to the public, but with much fear 
and trembling before God, not that we are unable to de- 
fend the principles as set forth in the ''supposed inter- 
view," but fearing that our God has never required such 
a work at our hands. 

Be this as it may, we have had an abiding impression 
for about eight years to submit such a work to the public 
in defence of the doctrine of the Old and New Testament 
Scriptures, as held to by the Old School or- Primitive 
Baptists, and in exposition of the various devices, strata- 
gems and inventions of men, setting forth the multiplied 
doctrines of Antichrist. We are pained to acknowledge 
that our manuscript is imperfect ; but we have done the 
best we could in condensing our thoughts, so as to make 
ourself understood, without making our work so volumi- 
nous as not to answer the purpose for which it was in- 
tended. We have for many years felt the necessity of 
such a work ; yea, one more able than we have been able 
to set forth, in defence of the doctrine of Jesus Christ 
and his Apostles, as held to by all lovers of truth, and in 
condemnation and answer to those who have a form of 
godliness, but deny the power thereof. " Having a form 



4 PREFACE. 

of godliness, but denying the power thereof ; from such 
turn away." — II Tim. iii. 5. 

How far we have succeeded in meeting this demand, 
in answering and repulsing the enemies of truth, when 
they are proposing and propounding hard questions to 
the humble saints of God, we leave with the humble 
lovers of truth, asking their prayerful approbation or re- 
jection. 

Our first chapter purports to be an interview between 
Truth and Error ; and at the time of writing said chap- 
ter, we expected to give our work the title of "Truth 
versus Error ;" but circumstances changed the title 
and style of the interview to a supposed interview be- 
tween the Arminian's God and his Arminian Ministers. 

Our first chapter being diametrically in opposition to 
the theory of the popular religious world, and by chance 
was closely scrutinized by our much esteemed friend, 
Eobert T. Milner, editor and proprietor of " The Hender- 
son Times" who insisted that we should submit it to the 
columns of his excellent paper. We rejected his gratuit- 
ous offer until we could confer with our much esteemed 
and talented friend, and now brother, Elder Charles 
Holcomb, who was and now is Moderator of the Little 
Hope Association, as to the propriety of such a course, 
when it was agreed that we submit it for publication in 
said secular paper, on condition that we be allowed space 
to defend it should any religious shark presume to strike 
at it ; whereupon it was published ; and immediately 
followed the strictures of several will- worshipers and a 



PREFACE. 5 

heated controversy ensued between the Eev. W. H. H. 
Hays, who is a modern disciple of Andrew Fuller, of 
Missionary Baptist notoriety, and the humble author of 
this manual, all of which appears in the first part of our 
book. After which, the title of our prospective book 
was changed to a " Diagram of the Churches," in which 
Diagram we have presumed to disabuse the minds of 
many of the humble saints of God's electing grace who 
have been unawares caught in the nets of Antichrist by 
not understanding the doctrine and tenets of the Primi- 
tive Baptists, and have been led away by the cunning 
craftiness of men. "That we henceforth be no more 
children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every 
wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning 
craftiness whereby they he in wait to deceive." — Eph. iv. 
14. 



COMPLIMENTARY LETTER. 



Henderson, Rusk Co., Texas, August 1, 1883. 

We believe that Dr. S. M. Carlton is actuated by a zeal for, and 
an ardent desire for the promulgation of the truth of the gospel 
of Jesus Christ, in the publication of the following work. We have 
been intimately acquainted with him for several years, and have 
admired his magnanimous spirit in entertaining and sustaining the 
people of God. His house has ever been the Christian's home, 
regardless of sectarianism or creeds ; believing, as he does, that 
many of the poor afflicted saints have been beguiled, and caught 
in the nets of Babylon, and are living upon the husks or chaff of 
Antichrist ; ' ' And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks 
that the swine did eat ; and no man gave unto him. And when he 
came to himself, he said, how many hired servants of my father's 
have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." — Luke 
xv. 16, 17. Should the following treatise inspire or give Christian 
fortitude to any of the starving children of God who are living upon 
such meager supplies of spiritual food, to come out from the tents 
of Babylon and enlist under the banner of Jesus Christ and his 
Apostles, by connecting themselves with the Church of Christ, as 
well as to inspire others of God's elect or chosen people, who have 
made no public profession of the Christian's faith, to take up their 
cross and follow Christ through evil as well as good report, we feel 
that our brother will be amply compensated for the vast amount of 
labor and time bestowed upon the work, regardless of the small 
remuneration that he justly expects in the sale of the book. 

We have carefully examined his manuscript, and pronounce it 



COMPLIMENTARY LETTER. I 

as being novel simple and sublime. He has, in a novel ''interview,'' 
and with simple allegories and arguments, expounded many of the 
deep mysteries of godliness, and has wonderfully confounded the 
devices and doctrines of men. He has reasoned from cause to effect, 
and from effect to cause, both in expounding the great plan of 
salvation, as well as the exposition of the doings of Antichrist ; and 
as far as we are able to judge, he has substantiated all of his 
arguments and illustrations by a "Thus saith the Lord." It is true 
that in some instances his illustrations and arguments are not as 
full as they might have been, or in some instances as they should 
have been, to put to silence the religious skeptic, or the disguised 
religious infidel, who has a form of godliness, but denies the power 
thereof ; nor could he have dwelt upon all the minutiae connected 
with such a grand commentary, without making the work too large 
for a convenient household treasure. But the mar. of God, who is 
an aspirant of truth, who has no other motive than to serve God 
according to His revealed word and will, will find but few reasons 
for rejecting any part of his commentary when properly understood. 
We are made to rejoice in our gratitude to God that He has 
enabled our brother in a very lucid manner to expound many of 
the deep things of God for which we have contended for many years 
from the sacred stand, and have in some instances been opposed by 
able ministers of the Old School or Primitive Baptists, for want of a 
proper understanding of us, or for want of a proper understanding 
of the Scriptures of divine truth. 

Our dear brother has beautifully harmonized the apparent 
contradictions (to the casual reader) of the Scriptures, and has 
thoroughly established, to our minds, God's absolute predestination 
of all things, both good and evil, and all for His own honor and 
glory. He has shown beyond cavil why God chose his elect people 
in Christ before the world began, and did not choose the others ; 
why God created evil in opposition to good ; the reason why He was 
compelled to have a hell, in order to have a heaven ; and thajfc he 
was obliged to have bad men, in order to have good men ; and that 
good could not exist without its opposite, evil ; and that God controls 



8 COMPLIMENTARY LETTER. 

all things in heaven, earth and hell, and works all things after the 
counsel of His own will and for His own glory. He makes the 
wrath of man to praise Him. 

"We are gratified to acknowledge that our God has been pleased 
to give our brother light and liberty with his ready pen, to unfold 
many of the deep mysteries of God that we have never before seen 
in the writings of man since the days of inspiration, and have but 
few times heard the whole gospel in its fullness proclaimed from 
the pulpit. We mean to say that these deep doctrines are usually 
omitted by our ablest ministers, either from a want of understanding 
of them, or fearing that they will not be profitable to their 
congregations. 

In our indorsement and recommendation of this book to the 
household of faith and lovers of truth, it is not expected that it will 
add one member to the body of Christ, but that it will be a source 
of comfort to the chosen of the Father, the redeemed of the Son, 
and the quickened of the Holy Spirit. And should there be any 
Christians so spiritually weak that they cannot comprehend the great 
truths therein contained, let them not therefore condemn it as being 
false, but rather pray for our God to give them an understanding of 
it, so that they may realize the truth of it, and feast upon that 
spiritual food that will nourish them into spiritual manhood. 

Eld. CHARLES HOLCOMB. 
" J. K. HOLCOMB. 
" NOAH T. FREEMAN. 



PAST I. 



TRUTH versus ERROR. 



By S. M. CARLTON, M. D., 

OF HENDERSON, TEXAS. 



Truth. — If God be God, who, or what power is there 
above Him that can prostrate or thwart His will ? And 
if He has the will to save the whole human family, He 
surely has the power to do so, or He ceases to be God, 
and the creature becomes more powerful than the Creator, 
in the destruction or salvation of his own soul, and damns 
or saves his soul by his own acts, regardless of the will 
of the Father to save him. Therefore God is denied the 
power to execute His will, and ceases to be Almighty, and 
does not have all power in earth, hell and heaven ; but is 
superceded by the handiwork of His own creation and is 
made subservient to the will of the creature. 

Error. — But, sir, the salvation of souls is upon con- 
tingencies. God has made a law that controls the destiny 
of all men everywhere, and has made man a free-agent ; 
and he can accept the terms of this law and be saved, or 
he can reject the terms of the gospel and be damned upon 
his own volition. 

Truth. — Allow me to interrupt your temporal thoughts, 
my friend, and admonish you never to slander the char- 



10 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

acter of God by accusing Him of doing that which you 
would not do yourself ; for if God foreknew all things, 
as all orthodox Christians say and believe He does, and if 
their belief is fully indorsed by the Scriptures, as it is, 
beyond all cavil, then would not God have been a poor 
law giver or jurist, to have given into the hands of poor, 
puny man a law which His foreknowledge knew that man 
would violate, and therefore damn the objects of His love, 
whom He so much desired the salvation of ? Now, my 
friend, you would not be guilty of such a violation of 
common sense in prescribing a domestic law for the gov- 
ernment of your natural children, which you knew they 
would violate, the penalty of which would be corporeal 
death. Then why accuse God of such an outrage upon 
His legal dignity, robbing Him of the salvation of the 
souls that He so much desires to save, and that He could 
not save, without it happens to suit the person or persons 
whom He desires to save, and that upon their own voli- 
tion? 

Error. — Well, then, if God does not save the people 
upon a principle of free-agency, and upon their own voli- 
tion, how do you reconcile the justice of God in suffering 
any to be lost ? 

Truth. — They are lost upon a principle of justice, and 
that justice is based upon the fact that the heirs of per- 
dition ( in a spiritual sense ) are not God's. They come 
from the infernal regions, and they will return to Satan, 
the author of their spiritual existence. And in like 
manner the heirs of promise will return to Christ in heaven, 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 11 

from whence they came, who is the author of their spiri- 
tual existence. " And the ransomed of the Lord shall 
return, [not may] and come to Zion with songs and ever- 
lasting joy upon their heads : they shall obtain joy and 
gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." — Isa. 
xxxv. 10. And I take it for granted that persons, things 
or spirits cannot return to places where they have not 
been. And the heirs of promise were all chosen in Christ 
before the foundation of the world, and their names were 
all written in the Lamb's Book of lif e ; and should any of 
this number apostatize and fail to be there at the final 
consummation of all things, God would be disappointed 
for want of ability to save them, and the body of Christ 
would be incomplete, and the Son could justly prosecute 
the Father for failure of contract, in that of not render- 
ing to him value received for that which he had bought 
with his blood and life, which price he had paid accord- 
ing to contract at the appointed time. And should there 
be others there who were not embraced in the covenant, 
Christ would surely reject them, as his body and contract 
would be complete without them ; and he surely would 
not presume to claim that which was not his by covenant 
and redemption. It is therefore reasonable to suppose, 
from common sense, as well as from inference, admitting 
that the Scriptures were silent upon this subject, that all 
who were not embraced in this covenant were heirs of 
perdition, and that their spiritual existence hailed from 
the underworld, and must by right return from whence 
they came. " Ye are of your father the devil, and the 



13 TRITH VEESrS ERROR. 

lusts of your father ye will do/' oc: — John viii. ±±. 
But from the character of Christ we could not presume 
that he would wantonly cheat Satan out of his dues ; 
but the character of Satan would swindle Christ out of 
his. and would deceive the very elect if it were possible. 
— Mark xiii. '2-2. But Christ knows them that are his, 
and they shall come unto him. and none shall be able to 
pluck them, vice— John x. i7. 28, 29. 
Error. — Bur. sir. it seems that God would be unjust 
nake a part of the human family - inned. and 

ren and happinesa 
Truth. — Be this as i: may. none dare say that God did 
not have the power B them if He had the will. 

Suppose we say that the family of perdition stood con- 
in the mind of r ah before all worlds were. 
and spiritual e:: was virtually in the 
: Sfi fore God spoke irr -rence their 
natural angs, and th I made them for the v 
purpose : nded for them. 
and that without them he could not have shown his wis- 
dom. ■;. and goodn the children of mercy : 
for the terms "good" and "h " would have been 
rms. without meaning, if they had not had their 
oppo si fces, '" and "hell:" and God was compelled, 
::y natm-e of tilings, to create inhabit- 
ants for both conditions and plac the creation of 
snch conditions and places would have been wholly un- 
necessary. 

Error.— Well. sir. is not one man as good by nature - 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 13 

another ? And why does God choose one of His creation 
as a vessel of mercy, and leave another without a chance 
for heaven and happiness ? And why is the gospel com- 
manded to be preached to all men everywhere ? 

Truth. — The preaching of the gospel indiscriminately 
to all men, is for the purpose of supplying his vessels of 
mercy with spiritual food, and is for the further purpose 
of confounding the brain religion of the mighty and wise 
of Antichrist, leaving Satan and his spiritual progeny 
without excuse, that they may not plead ignorance in the 
day of final retribution ; thereby making their own con- 
demnation more complete. For it is written, that God 
caused certain parties to believe a he, that they might be 
damned. "And for this cause God shall send them 
strong delusion, that they should believe a he : that they 
all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had 
pleasure in unrighteousness." — 2 Thes. ii. 11, 12 ; also, 
see 1 Kings xxii. Showing conclusively that God did 
not want them in heaven, for the reason that they did 
not belong to the heavenly family of Christ ; but God did 
have a use for them on earth, or He would not have 
created them. And we all agree that men are by nature 
the same ; but it is written, ( in speaking to the heirs of 
promise,) "Among whom also we all had our conversa- 
tion in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, f ulfilling the 
desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature 
the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is 
rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, 
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us to- 



14 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

gether with Christ, ( by grace ye are saved )," &c. — Eph. ii. 
3, 4, 5. 

But it cannot be shown upon Bible authority that they 
are the others, or any part of them. And so far as not 
giving them a chance for heaven and happiness is con- 
cerned, it camiot be proven upon Bible testimony that one 
of this class has e*ver wanted to be saved, only upon their 
own terms, and their terms have ever been in direct 
opposition to the terms of heaven. Therefore all their 
good works and good deeds are rejected, as they are 
claiming heaven and happiness upon their own merited 
goodness, instead of the merits of Christ. 

But the family of heaven, when they are quickened in- 
to spiritual life, and made to see what they are by nature, 
and what they must be by grace before they can be saved, 
are then ready to say in their contrition and humility, 
"Thy will be done, God, and not mine ;" and in the 
midst of their guilt they would be ready to say, "Amen," 
at then own condemnation. 

And so far as choice is concerned, God chooses the 
heirs of promise because they are His, and does not choose 
them to make them His ; and He rejects the heirs of per- 
dition because they are not His. All are His by creation, 
but not by adoption. 

- Error. — This doctrine seems to put the people upon the 
stool of do-nothing ; for if they are to be saved, they will 
be saved anyhow, and therefore license the people in wick- 
edness. 

Truth.— We deny the charge, and claim that every 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 15 

man is a moral agent, and that the people of Antichrist 
was raised in the fall of Adam from their degradation in 
hell (in a spiritual sense), to a level with the heirs of 
promise (in a natural sense), who were in Christ spirit- 
ually before the world was. And both families shook 
hands, as it were, in the persons of Adam and Eve, nat- 
urally and morally. Therefore our natural pride of char- 
acter, and our moral obligations to God and to each other, 
are identical. And the people of perdition should not 
accuse God of injustice, but should render praise unto 
Him, for having elevated them to a moral status in this 
life with the family of Christ ; and at their death their 
spirits will return from whence they came, and no charge 
can be laid to God for injustice. But, on the other hand, 
those that die in the triumphs of a living faith, their 
spirits will take their everlasting flight, and will repose 
in Christ, from whence they came ; and no charge is laid 
at the hands of God by them, for causing them to come 
down from heaven and partake of the nature of the child- 
ren of wrath, and become like them temporally and mor- 
ally ; but they rejoice in the hope of their spirits return- 
ing to reunite with Christ in heaven. But to explain our 
temporal and spiritual existence more fully, we will say 
that all the heavenly family were in Christ spiritually 
before man was created, and that God made man in the 
likeness of his own image. " And God said, Let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness," &c— Gen. i. 26. 

Of course the humanity of Jesus Christ was present 
with God, and was the temple of the Spirit of God, form- 



16 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

ing the unity of the Father, Son and Spirit ; and as man 
could not have been made like a spirit, he was made after 
the image of Jesus corporally. So we conclude that the 
humanity of Christ was ever present with God, and that 
it makes all the changes that Divinity is so often accused 
of making. Man ( together with all things else that were 
created) was pronounced good, and very good. "And 
God saw every thing that he had made ; and, behold, it 
was very good. " — Gen. i. 31. So there could not have been 
any latent evil or innate principle of sin in Adam at that 
time, or he could not have been good, and very good : 
but there did exist in his loins the natural germs of the 
spiritual family of Christ ; so that when Adam trans- 
gressed the command of God, this spiritual family of 
heaven fell down to a level with the family of Antichrist, 
and the family of Antichrist was promoted from the 
depths of hell to a moral status with the people of God ; 
for which they should render God praise and homage in 
this life, for the enjoyments of its temporal blessings. 
Hence the Scripture, " For as in Adam all die, even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive." — 1. Cor.xv. 22. The ran- 
somed of the Lord were all that were in Adam ( in a 
spiritual sense ) at the time of his transgression ; so Christ 
died for all that fell in Adam, as Adam at that time 
was not contaminated with the wicked principles of Satan, 
as he was not yet denied but was made susceptible ( to- 
gether with Eve ) to the conception and germination of the 
children of wrath, in a spiritual sense. The devil being 
deceitful and cunning, he confronted the woman, and she 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 17 

sinned against the command of God ; and Adam loved her, 
( as Christ loved his bride, the church, which church the 
woman typifies,) and died to the love of holiness, and was 
made alive to the love of sin, by partaking of her sins, 
that he might live with her. And in like manner Christ 
loved his bride, the church, and took upon himself a body 
of flesh and blood, and died naturally or corporally for 
the justification of his chosen vessels of mercy, who fell 
in Adam. Hence we see that the tares were sown with 
the wheat ; and never until this sin, were Adam and Eve 
capable of the conception and germination of the children 
of perdition • for the spiritual germs did not exist in them, 
as they were free from sin, or they could not have been 
good. So was the field free from tares when the wheat 
was sown ; but there came an enemy afterwards, and 
sowed tares with the wheat. And as Adam and Eve re- 
present the field, the heirs of promise were sown in them 
first, and afterwards the serpent sowed the seed of Satan 
in them. And as wheat and tares grow together in the 
same field, or soil, from the same culture, so in like man- 
ner do the heirs of promise and the heirs of perdition, 
conceive, germinate and mature from the same natural 
parents. See the allegories of Cain and Abel, Isaac and 
Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. 

Error. — Well, sir, if that doctrine be true, a man can 
execute all the wickedness that his mind can conceive, 
and if he is to be saved he will be saved anyhow, and 
there is no use in his trying to do good. And if I believ- 
ed as you do, I would live on the fat of the land, regard- 
less of how I become in possession of it. 



18 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

Truth. — Providence has wisely put it into the minds 
of all men to believe that there is a chance for them in- 
dividually to be saved ; even the heirs of perdition believe 
alike with the heirs of promise (prior to regeneration ) 
that they will be or can be saved upon legal principles, 
and are ever trying to court the favor of God upon 
law principles, hoping to bring God under obligations 
to save them. And what a wise provision in God's 
eternal purposes, and how moralizing in its tendencies, 
for man not to know that he is doomed to hell by the 
eternal decrees of heaven ; for if not an heir of promise, 
the positive injunction must be that he is an heir of per- 
dition ; for there are but two ways and two conditions — 
right and wrong, heaven and hell. And God's foreknowl- 
edge comprehended all the situations before all worlds 
were, or he ceases to be almighty and allwise, and only 
knows things as they take place, like as you and I. We 
cannot dishonor God by limiting His knowledge ; if we 
do, the whole foundation of the Christian religion is a 
failure, and infidelity predominates over Christ and his 
cause. The Apostolic or Primitive Baptists have never 
taught nor preached the doctrine that "If I am to be 
saved, I will be saved anyhow." They preach a doctrine 
that exactly accords with the teachings of the word of 
God ; that all that ever have been, are now, or ever will 
be saved, were saved in the eternal mind of Jehovah be- 
fore the world began ; and that in the covenant of redemp- 
tion between the Father and the Son, their names were 
all written in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 19 

of the world ; and that it is as much impossible for one 
name to be blotted out, or another to be added thereto, 
as it would be for human ingenuity to blot out or dislo- 
cate any of the astronomical bodies ; and that the whole 
fixedness of purpose in the mind of God in the salvation 
of His vessels of mercy is, if possible, more positive than 
the evolutions of the luminaries of day and night ; or else 
God is mocked in His foreknowledge and eternal purposes, 
and religion is nothing more than a mental delusion, and 
is based upon the fabric of a vision, and is therefore noth- 
ing but chance and speculation. God does not work by 
chance, but does all things by positive commands — "I 
will, and you shall." He does not say, I will save you if 
you will let me ; nor that you can be saved upon your 
own volition if you will ; neither are the Old and New 
Testaments addressed to any except the vessels of mercy 
in a spiritual sense, but are addressed to the whole human 
family in a moral sense ; hence the human family are 
making a great effort to save themselves, by living up to 
the moral teachings of the Scriptures, and are substitut- 
ing the commandments and institutions of men for the 
blood of Christ, and are very zealous, apparently, in ask- 
ing God to bless their so-called Christian institutions to 
the salvation of their children, etc., and claim that God 
has enjoined it upon them, that their children may be 
raised up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord ; that 
the teaching thereof is a stepping-stone to the Christian 
religion, and that by degrees the young mind and heart 
is so wrought upon by the teachings of these institutions 



20 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

that they soon become fit subjects, spiritually, for the 
church of Christ. what self-aggrandizement ! and how 
God-dishonoring is such a theory of religious fanaticism 
and disguised infidelity ! 

And so far as your living on the fat of the land is con- 
cerned, all regenerated men and women, in their convic- 
tion and convertion, are killed to the love of sin, and can- 
not five any longer therein. They do not want to steal, 
murder, commit adultery, swindle, cheat, defraud, etc., 
etc. And you have tacitly acknowledged that you would 
do all of these evils if you were not afraid of the devil 
and hell ; and all regenerated Christians give you credit for 
honesty in acknowledging that you are only serving God 
through fear, and not through love, as the Christian serves 
Him. And the Christian knows full well that you have 
never been killed to the love of sin, and made alive to the 
love of righteousness, or you would not utter such epithets 
against the Christian religion. 

We would respectfully refer self-willed Christians to the 
18th and 19th verses of the last chapter of Eevelation, and 
ask them to read carefully and see if they are adding any- 
thing in these latter days to the prophecies and commands 
of God and his Christ ; and if so, what will be their re- 
ward ? We would further ask if they are not committing 
a great sin of presumption, in presuming upon the ignor- 
ance of God and his Christ, as being incompetent to the 
task of revealing and having transmitted to writing in 
the sacred volume of truth, by inspired men of God, their 
will concerning the human family, and especially con- 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 21 

cerning the heirs of promise. Yet in open rebellion to 
the teachings of the verses referred to, we find many de- 
flections and innovations upon these solemn injunctions, 
and great stress is put upon the teachings of these self- 
willed, so-called Christian institutions, for which there 
cannot be found in the sacred volume a " Thus saith the 
Lord ;" and yet they are much revered by the popular 
religious world ; asking God in all their petitions, with 
much zeal and eloquence of speech, to honor and bless 
their institutions to the conversion of poor, lost sinners, 
and to the pulling down of the strongholds of Satan, and 
rearing these self-willed institutions in their stead ; when 
God nor his Christ have ever commanded or required any 
such things at the hands of his chosen people. And it is 
a direct accusation upon the character of God to suppose 
that he would have left anything undone or that He would 
have failed through His inspired writers to have penned 
down any part of His will concerning the people of His 
choice, or elect family. Hence the true people of God 
are not engaged in such deflections and innovations upon 
the revealed word of God, but content themselves by try- 
ing to do that which is written ; no more, no less. 

And they are much chagrined and mortified at times in 
not being able to live as near the pattern of Christ as they 
would wish to ; but when they have nearly desponded 
over their sins of commission and omission, they are 
cheered up by a recital of the experience of "Paul," when 
he said that the things that he would not do, them he did; 
and that the things that he would do, them he did not ; 



22 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

hence it was no more him that sinned but sin that dwelt 
in him. 

Many similar expressions of this able defender of God's 
holy will cause the poor, humble follower of Christ to 
press forward to the mark of the high calling of God and 
His Christ, regardless of all the buff etings and derision of 
the self-willed popular religion of the day. 

We would say to our friendly opposers ( many of whom 
we believe to be regenerated souls, but from the fact of 
bad religious tuition are in Babylon,) that the church of 
Christ in its purity is the " covering grip" to all the self- 
willed charitable institutions that have ever been insti- 
tuted by man, and is the substance of all their typical 
shadows in the shape of human so-called Christian insti- 
tutions. And if the regenerated soul is in possession of 
the substance of the Christian religion, and feels the wit- 
ness within him, speaking peace to his soul, why could he 
cling to, or what use would he have for, the shadow ? 
Old things are done away and all things are become new 
with them. They then depend upon the grace of God for 
salvation, and give up all then works of righteousness ; 
and they know full well that the works of others, with 
all their boasted institutions of TJieology, Charity, Mis- 
sionary Operations, Hirelings to carry the gospel to the 
heathen, ( who, they claim, are dying and going to hell 
for want of the gospel,) will never save a single soul from 
hell, nor add one to the redeemed family of God's vessels 
of mercy. The people of God are positively commanded 
to come out from the world, and it is enjoined upon them 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 23 

to be a separate and distinct people. The Old Baptists pro- 
pose to do this. No more, no less. They are not allowed 
to affiliate with the institutions of the world, and the in- 
stitution of Christ at the same time ; serving G-od and 
Mammon at the same time ; running with the hare and 
holding with the hounds. All they crave is to serve God 
and not the world. They do not propose to do the insti- 
tutions of man any violence, but they do propose to pre- 
serve the church of Christ according to God's pattern. 

Among whatever nation, kindred or tongue God has a 
people, He is able to raise up a ministry who will pro- 
claim the glad tidings of His rich and free grace, through 
the mediation of Christ, to the conviction, conversion and 
regeneration of all that chosen people whose lot may be 
cast among the heathen, and that without money and 
without price, and without the vain foibles of self -exalted 
Antichrist, with all of his allurements and auxiliaries in 
helping God to save souls that God and his Christ have 
already saved before all worlds were. For in the fullness 
of God's time Christ made his advent into the world and 
paid the price of redemption, according to previous agree- 
ment with the Father and the Son. The covenanted 
children being the component members of Christ's body, 
and being in Christ, and Christ being in God, therefore 
the regenerated part of man, being in Christ, and Christ 
being in God, and the regenerated part of man being of 
the Spirit of God, and necessarily merges back into God, 
through the mediation of Christ, how is it possible for any 
part or parcel of the redeemed family of heaven ever to 



24 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

be lost ? or how is it possible for the ingenuity of all the 
soul-saving machinery of men, with all their hirelings 
and money, ever to add one soul to the number of Christ's. 
Church, or body, without defacing the body, or church 
of Christ ? This being done, God would in part be the 
author of His own destruction, in that of destroying 
Himself, or a part thereof, and would deface the church 
of Christ, and the body of His only begotten Son, who is 
equal with the Father, if He were to allow one of this 
heavenly throng to be disinherited upon the theory of 
absurd apostasy, based upon free moral agency, and 
would violate a solemn contract with His Son. Such a 
theory is nothing more than religious romance, and is im- 
possible. 

Error. — But, sir, do not the Old and New Testaments 
abound with the laws of Moses and other inspired writers, 
commanding the people everywhere, in the name of God, 
to repent and obey the gospel, or law, and be saved, with 
the positive injunction that if they do not, they will be 
lost ? Now, sir, what does all this mean, if we can do 
nothing in effecting our own everlasting salvation ? And 
do you suppose, sir, that God would have been silly 
enough to have given such a law and then made it impos- 
sible for man to have kept it ? This, sir, seems to make 
God the author of sin, and is a direct accusation upon the 
justice of God, in that of sending souls to hell without 
giving them any chance for heaven and happiness ; when, 
at the same time, He made them and ushered them into 
existence without their consent, seemingly to get a 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 25 

chance to send them to hell. Now, sir, I cannot conceive 
of a principle in the character of God that would wan- 
tonly commit such treason against His own law and 
justice, and I cannot, will not, believe such extravagant 
views of God's justice. 

Truth. — The word of God will answer your interroga- 
tions. "The Lord hath made all things for himself; 
yea, even the wicked for the day of evil," — Pro v. xvi. 4, 
and you dare not reply against God. " Nay, but, man, 
who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing 
formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made 
me thus ? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of 
the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another 
unto dishonor ? What if God, willing to show his wrath, 
and to make his power known, endured with much long 
suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction ; and 
that He might make known the riches of His glory on the 
vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory; 
even us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but 
also of the Gentiles ?"— Eom. ix. 20-24. 

Now, sir, if you reject the testimony of God, written 
by inspiration, under the auspices of God, how could I, 
a poor, puny atom of his creation, expect to control lan- 
guage that would be sufficient to cause you to believe the 
truth? And until the wisdom and light of the Holy 
Spirit accompanies the arguments of the people that are 
taught of God, they would not expect to succeed in con- 
vincing the natural mind of man in its unregenerated 
condition. See what Paul says : " But the natural man 



26 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are 
f oolishness unto him ; neither can he know them, because 
they are spiritually discerned." — I Cor. ii. 14. Allow 
me to say to you, my friend, that you will never believe 
the truth until you are made able by the teachings of the 
Holy Spirit to discern between law and grace ; for the 
natural man cannot discern the things of the Spirit ; 
they are foolishness to him ; he is not a subject of the law 
of grace, neither indeed can he be, until he is spiritually 
taught. 

When the Christian is made alive to the law of grace, 
he is elevated above the law of reason, and is made alive 
to the law of divinity ; hence there is a perfect turning 
about in his manner of reasoning. He now reasons upon 
natural things, from natural laws, and from natural 
attributes ; and he reasons upon divine things from 
divine laws, and divine attributes ; the difference be- 
tween which he was never able to see until he was made 
alive to the love of Christ as his Savior. This we know 
is f oolishness to the unconverted ; but the word of God 
and our own experience teach the same great truth. 
And we here assert (knowing that the Bible will bear us 
out in the position) that you had as well undertake to 
mix oil and water, as to mix law and grace. Law is of 
natural origin ; grace is of divine origin. Law is the 
perfection of human reason and human wisdom ; grace 
is the perfection of divine reason and divine wisdom. 
The votaries of the law will be saved in this world, as 
nations, communities and individuals, The votaries of 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 27 

grace will be saved indiscriminately, among all nations, 
kindreds and tongues, in the world to come. And the 
votaries of law, who are not the subjects of grace, will 
be lost indiscriminately in the world to come. 

Necessarily the whole human family are the subjects 
of law, while the ransomed of the Lord are only the sub- 
jects of grace. 

If the whole human family could be made votaries of 
the law, and not violators of the law, then the law would 
be the perfection of human morals, human society, 
human intercoiirse, etc., but would not save a soul from 
hell. 

Grace is not only the perfection of divine reason, but 
its votaries are the perfection of God's foreknowledge, 
the perfection of God's eternal purposes, the perfection 
of the Christian religion, the perfection of Christ and his 
church, and will be executed, and cannot be blended 
with law in the final salvation of souls ; therefore the 
votaries of Christ are above the law, and are not subjects 
of the law in a spiritual sense, but are subjects of grace ; 
therefore the regenerated part of the human family are 
subject to the laws that be, but are above the law, being 
a law unto themselves ; for they are taught of God. 
" For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to 
do of His good pleasure." — Phil. ii. 13. Then they have 
no desire to violate the laws that be, nor the laws of 
grace. 

Law, in olden times, as at present, was for the govern- 
ment of the nations, and the subjugation and control of 



30 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

misery ; the other to eternal happiness. One of the ways 
emanates from the spirit of Antichrist ; the other ema- 
nates from the Spirit and eternal purposes of God. Much 
of the law in olden times was of divine origin, and was 
given by divine command, and of necessity must apply 
to saints as well as sinners ; for God is not a respecter of 
persons in a national and law sense, and all must be sub- 
ject to the same law. ' ' Because the law worketh wrath ; 
for where no law is, there is no transgression." — Eom. iv. 
15. "And if a house be divided against itself, that 
house cannot stand." — Mark hi. 25. So there must be 
unison or harmony in this law. And the law that was 
given by inspiration or command of God, is just as holy 
as God is holy. And as there is no perfection in human 
nature, who can keep a law that is perfection ? " Yea, 
let God be true, but every man a liar." — Eom. hi. 4. So, 
if our eternal salvation depended upon the keeping of 
this just and holy law, all men would be eternally lost. 
"There is none good but one, that is God." — Mat. xix. 
17. " For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness 
to every one that believeth." — Eom. x. 4. So Christ has 
paid the penalty of this law for all that fell under this 
law, and has raised them above this law, and has placed 
them where they originally stood in Christ spiritually 
before the law was given to them. Hence they are above 
the law in a spiritual sense, but are subjects, together 
with the spiritual progeny of Satan, to the laws of the 
nation or community of which they are citizens ; which 
law, as it now stands, purports to have been based upon 
the letter of this holy law. 



TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 31 

Some will be violators and some votaries of this law 
among all nations, and some will be votaries of grace 
among all nations, from the fact of this knowledge hav- 
ing been and will be communicated to them through the 
medium of the Holy Spirit. But all are required or ex- 
pected to keep the law that governs the nation or country 
of which they are citizens, from the fact that it is taught 
by the letter and spirit of literature, and not by the Spirit 
of God. And the violators of this law must suffer its 
penalties, on the theory that all men are familiar with 
the laws of their own country. " Then Peter opened his 
mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no re- 
specter of persons." — Acts x. 34. Hence God has elected 
His vessels of mercy from among all nations, and does 
not respect the nation to which they belong, and inspires 
them at His own appointed time with the knowledge of 
His love. "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, 
saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love ; 
therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." — 
Jer. xxxi. 3. 

The spiritual progeny of Satan did not fall under this 
law in the transgression of our primitive parents, from 
the fact that they had not been up anywhere to fall, but 
were raised from their degradation with their spiritual 
father, Satan, to the moral teachings of the law ; and 
like their fountain, they cannot rise above their level ; 
they must stay with their spiritual father, Satan. " Ye 
are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father 
ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and 



32 TRUTH VERSUS ERROR. 

abode not in the truth ; because there is no truth in him. 
When he speaketh a he, he speaketh of his own ; for he 
is a liar, and the father of it." — John viii. 44. 

Our ancient brethren, who lived in the prophetic and 
law dispensation, looked forward to the coming of the 
Messiah as their Savior, and were governed by this holy 
law ; while the modern Christian, who lives under the 
Christian era, or new dispensation, is content to live in 
accordance with the pattern of Christ ; Jesus Christ hav- 
ing come into the world, not to destroy or do away with 
the law, but to fulfill the law ; hence Christ is the end of 
the law, having fulfilled the law, (Rom. x. 4,) and is now 
to the modern Christian the law ; and all true Christians 
are now governed by the examples and commands of 
Christ, instead of the examples and commands of the 
law ; Christ being the very essence and substance of this 
ancient and divine law ; hence this law has no bearing 
upon the modern Christian, but he is wholly dependent 
upon Christ for eternal salvation. 



PART H. 



A CONTROVERSY 

Between the Kev. W. H. H. Hays (who is one of the 
leading disciples of the modern Missionary Baptists, 
growing out of the publication of the foregoing part, 
as published in The Henderson Times, a secular 
paper of the Gity of Henderson, Texas, who writes 
above the signature of "Red." Also, an answer 
to the fictitious name of "Caledonia," whose strict- 
ure I append,) and the author. 



Ed. Times : — I have just read in your excellent paper 
of the 8th and 15th inst., Dr. S. M. Carlton's theory of 
the plan of salvation. I took up my pen once to dissect 
the untimely, deformed subject of Daniel Parkerism, 
and to show its deformity to public gaze, which is easily 
done ; but remembering that Dr. Carlton is not a mem- 
ber of any church, hence not responsible to any denom- 
ination for his doctrine, I concluded that the game was 
too small to waste ammunition with. I hope the Doctor 
is not as ignorant of Materia Medica as he is of the plan 
of salvation ; if so, I pity all who may fall into his hands. 

Yours truly, 
Minden, Sept. 19th, 1881. EED. 



34 A CONTROVERSY. 

S. M. Carlton, M. D. -.—Since Providence has put it 
into the minds of some to "believe" what is false, are 
you sure, beyond a doubt, that you are not niistaken in 
being an ' ' heir of promise ? " CALEDONIA. 

Caledonia, Sept. 19th, 1881. 



Answer to "Red" and "Caledonia." 

Ed. Times : — We think that prudence was the better 
part of valor in our friend "Red " when he declined "to 
dissect the untimely, deformed subject of Daniel Parker- 
ism ; " "but remembering that Dr. Carlton is not a mem- 
of any church," etc., "I concluded that the game was too 
small to waste ammunition with." 

So far as my not being a member of any church is con- 
cerned, that need not make any difference with Mr. ' 'Red. " 
The Old School or Primitive Baptists, as a mass, will in- 
dorse me ; but the probabilities are that they would be 
too small game for Mr. Ked's ammunition ; but the Bible 
and its plain teachings are not too small game for him to 
waste ammunition at ; for we have heard him in thunder 
tones from the sacred desk, shooting at the plain teach- 
ings of the Bible, over the dead body of Daniel Parker, 
fearing that the truth might affect his salary a little ; for 
we could not regard him as ignorant, but as using policy 
for spoils. If Mr. "Red" had been as careful as we have 
been in "not being a member of any church," in regard 
to hypocrisy he perhaps would not occupy the place that 
he does to-day. 



A CONTROVERSY. 35 

We with shame acknowledge our nothingness, but feel 
that the game is equal to his ammunition, and award to 
him full liberty : and when he shall hare annihilated the 
doctrine contained in my article, he will have wiped out 
the old and new Testament Scriptures, and will have to 
subterfuge under the traditions of his fathers, Antichrist, 
or some of the new translations that some of his egotistic 
brethen are so zealously perverting, to have things their 
own way. Mr. " Red" misrepresents us when he says, 
"Dr. S. M. Carlton's theory of the plan of salvation. " 
We deny having any theory of the plan of salvation of 
our own. as accused by Mr. "Red"; but the G-od of 
Heaven has a plan of salvation that we heartily indorse 
and advocate without the fear of successful contradiction. 
Perhaps our article is about to injure the business of our 
friend ; ' Red, " by convincing the people that their eternal 
salvation or destruction is in the hands of the Lord, and 
not in the hands of "Rev." dogmatic venders of the 
religion of "Mystery, Babylon." And should any of the 
people of G-od discover then mistake, and abandon their 
idolatry and come to the church of Christ, it might crip- 
ple his salary ; hence he makes a stab at my professional 
attainments, and pities those that fall into my hands. 
We suppose he does this by way of retaliation ; for surely 
our " Rev'd" friends could not be so ignorant of the spirit- 
ual meaning of the Bible as to pervert its meaning inno- 
cently. So we can but presume that his commission is 
soul-saving for money. 

In answer to our friend " Caledonia" we do not know 



36 A CONTROVERSY. 

whether we are an heir of perdition or an heir of promise; 
but one thing we do know, that it is none of his business. 

Respectfully, 
Sept. 29, 1881. S. M. CARLTON. 

Dr. Carlton Answered. 

Ed. Times: — "So far as my not being a member of any 
church is concerned, that need not make any difference 
with Mr. Red. The Old School or Primitive Baptists, as a 
mass, will indorse me, " etc. I think I have more fellowship 
for the Baptists that Dr. Carlton speaks of, than he has, 
and I believe that I know as much or more about their 
articles of faith ; and I say, without the fear of contradict- 
ion, that they as a denomination will not indorse Dr. 
Carlton as a theologian. 

I have no war to make on the anti- Missionary Baptists, 
for when they split off from the Missionaries their articles 
of faith were the same. They split on Christian work ; 
not as to how men were saved, but as to what they were 
commanded to do after they were saved. 

As to the theory advocated by friend Dr. Carlton, ( and 
I do not wish to be considered in any other light,) there 
is not one organized body under the sun that holds to any 
such doctrine. There may be a faction, and probably is 
in existence, which was led off by Daniel Parker. He 
gave his theory in what he was pleased to call " Three 
Doses," but even Daniel Parker's " three doses" had a 
little better face than the dose presented by Dr. Carlton. 

I hope all who have his article in their house will re- 
read it and compare it with the Bible. You will see that 



A CONTROVERSY. 37 

it is dishonoring to God. It does not lay man in the dust 
of humility before God, where he belongs ; but it makes 
him a bigot. It does not harmonize with the Bible as to 
the plan of salvation. It makes a part of the human 
family the sons of God, and He must take them by 
families, infants and all; and on the other hand, it destroys 
by families, infants and all. The love of God is not dis- 
played in any part of it, and I must say, with all respect 
to the feelings of Dr. Carlton, as a friend, that it is in 
fidelity in the extreme, and that I, with a great many of 
the good citizens of this section, were very much aston- 
ished when we saw the article appear in our excellent 
county paper ; and with your consent, Mr. Editor, I will 
take up the arguments, and answer, one by one, as soon 
as time will permit, as I am very busy just now. 

I suppose the Doctor misunderstood me when I referred 
to his profession. I did not do this to call in question his 
ability as a physician. I did not say that he was ignor- 
ant of Materia Medica. 

Not being versed in that branch of science, I cannot say; 
but having made the bible my study for a number of 
years, I must say that his theory is as far from the truth 
as that of Robt. Ingersoll, which I will show, if I take up 
his arguments to answer. 

As to what the Doctor says in regard to my hypocrisy 
in advocating certain theories for money, that is in per- 
fect keeping with the spirit which his theory produces in 
the heart. — " Nobody right but me and mine." 

Oct. 13, 1881. Respectfully, RED. 



38 A CONTROVERSY. 

Ed. Times: — As our answer to Mr. " Red " will not ap- 
pear in this week's issue of the Times, for want of space, 
will your generosity allow me space to relate an anecdote 
that very aptly illustrates Mr. Red's assumption in claim- 
ing the name of " Primitive Baptist." 

In the absence of a woodchuck, a polecat crept into 
the house of the woodchuck and took possession. When 
the woodchuck returned, and found his house occupied, 
and demanded possession, the skunk bitterly refused to 
come out, and claimed that the house was actually his, 
and that he himself was a woodchuck. The woodchuck 
looked at him, talked with him, and smelt of him, and 
again ordered him out and off ; for he did not look like a 
woodchuck, talk like a woodchuck, nor did he smell like 
a woodchuck, and he knew that he was not a woodchuck. 
In like manner our friend " Red " may have crept in and 
stolen the old Baptist's articles of faith, but that does not 
make him an Old Baptist ; for he does not look like an 
Old Baptist, he does not preach like an Old Baptist, nor 
does he smell like an Old Baptist, and is not an Old Bap- 
tist. Respectfully, 

Oct. 20th, 1881. S. M. CARLTON. 



Carlton vs. "Red." 
Ed. Times : — We wish it distinctly understood that, 
personally, we are a friend to Mr. "Red," but a bitter 
enemy to his religious dogmas ; and when we take off 
our gloves to handle his assertions and perversions, we 
mean to do him no personal harm. 



A CONTROVERSY. 39 

The devil himself was not more presumptuous when he 
confronted our mother Eve in the Garden of Eden, and 
gave God the he, than is our friend "Bed," when he 
attempts to claim the name "Old School or Primitive 
Baptist ;" neither was the devil further from the truth 
than is our friend "Red," and his assertions and pre- 
sumptions will ever stand as assertions and presumptions 
without proof ; for every honest historian knows the 
falsity of his pretense, and he is now begging the ques- 
tion, and desiring to be called by her name, to immortal- 
ize his shame, and is climbing up some other way, as a 
thief and a robber. (John x. 1.) And as Mr. "Red's" 
ancient cohorts sought not Christ because of his miracles, 
but because of the loaves and fishes (John vi. 26), in like 
manner Mr. "Red " and his Arminian cohorts left the Old 
Baptists and walked no more with them (John vi. 66). 
And why did they leave them 1 Because they were not 
of them. The Old Baptists are to-day what they were in 
the days of Christ and his apostles— sticklers for the 
doctrine of the Bible, without any new patents or new 
inventions ; and because they will not go with the multi- 
tude after filthy lucre and new inventions, the so-called 
missionaries, but indeed hirelings and gospel merchants, 
making merchandise of the gospel (John ii. 16 ; 2d Peter 
ii. 3 ; John x. 12, 13), and left the old landmarks and 
went after new gods, in the guise of missionaries, 
when indeed they are not missionaries, but hirelings, 
putting themselves up at the highest bidder, and are 
indeed proposing to sell salvation to poor lost sinners 



40 A CONTROVERSY. 

— selling Jesus and him crucified to poor sin-sick 
souls; for indeed they claim that many are dying and 
going to hell for want of this treasured boon, and that 
nothing but money and means will serve to assist God in 
accomplishing His great and wonderful achievements. 
But Jesus Christ and his apostles did not so teach. They 
preached Jesus to the people without money and without 
price, and took God's word for surety that they should 
and would be sustained ; and where they were not re- 
ceived they were commanded to shake off the dust of 
their feet as a testimony against that people. — Mark vi. 
11. But our so-called Missionaries are not willing to take 
God for surety, but must have further surety ; not will- 
ing to risk God, therefore pledges, confederations, articles 
of agreement, promising to pay the "Rev. D. D., L.L.D." 
a stipulated salary for so many discourses or sermons ; 
making merchandise of the gospel. And instead of 
"woe is me if I preach not the gospel" (1st Cor. ix. 16), 
it is, "Woe unto me if I get not the money in the guise 
of ' Christian work ;' " as though God was not able to 
take care of His chosen people, and lead them in paths 
that they have not known, and make rough places 
smooth, and crooked things straight, and darkness light 
before them (Isa. xlii. 16), at his own appointed time, 
and in his own appointed way, as he led the children of 
Israel out of Egyptian bondage. 

But in the face of all this perversion of the old land- 
marks for Mr. " Bed " to have the presumption to claim to 
be an Old School or Primitive Baptist, 0, my God ! Such 



A CONTROVERSY. 41 

mockery ! When, indeed, the Old School or Primitive 
Baptists, whom Mr. "Bed" is pleased to call anti-mis- 
sionaries, are the only true apostolic missionaries that 
ever have been since the days of Christ and his apostles ; 
and every intelligent historian that will honestly lay 
aside his creed can trace them back to their apostolic 
origin. 

In order to prove more positively the identity of the 
Old Baptists with the apostles, we would ask Mr. " Bed," 
or any of his cohorts, to point out any command, ordin- 
ance or duty as laid down in the New Testament, that 
the Old Baptists do not observe as Christians, (we mean 
the people that he is pleased to call anti-missionaries), 
and my word for it, they will take it as a great favor, 
and will adopt it at once. He will then please point out 
something that they do in a church capacity that is not 
laid down in the New Testament ; and my word for it, 
they will abandon the practice. Will my friend " Bed " 
and his Arminian cohorts be equally honest in adopting 
things that are written in the New Testament, that they 
do not practice, and to abandon things that are not writ- 
ten in the Scriptures, that they have adopted into their 
so-called Primitive Baptist church, as stepping-stones 
and nurseries to their so-called church ? Then we will 
soon find who has a bona fide title to the name "Primi- 
tive Baptist." We much fear that our friend "Bed" 
will again dodge the question, and substitute a few more 
assertions without proof. Our friend will find that mak- 
ing assertions is an easy task ; but proving his assertions 



42 A CONTROVERSY. 

and perversions to be truth, by a " Thus saith the Lord," 
will be very difficult. And we will receive no other tes- 
timony, and will award to him the remainder of his 
natural life to accomplish the task he proposes, and he 
will then be wanting in a " Thus saith the Lord." 

In regard to the infant's salvation, Mr. "Red" grossly 
misrepresents us ; for the Old School Baptists (not his 
New School that he represents) are the only people on 
earth, that we have any knowledge of, who preach a 
positive infant salvation ; for if infants are the little sin- 
less creatures that Mr. "Red" and his cohorts would 
have you believe, and that they are saved on account of 
then purity, then it stands as a certainty that all infants 
are lost ; for Christ came only to save sinners. And if 
they are saved upon conditions, based upon the volition 
or act of the creature, we know that all infants are lost, 
they not being competent to act faith or do any good 
deed. We claim that the infant is saved upon the same 
principle of mercy as is the adult. " Therefore hath he 
mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hard- 
eneth." — Eom. ix. 18. Audit is none of Mr. "Red's" 
business whom God bestows mercy upon, or whom he 
hardens ; neither will his vanity change God's favors or 
frowns upon the subjects of his choice. How glad we 
are that we are a sinner, and that our two little infants, 
who died in infancy, were sinners ; for if they were not 
sinners, they have no part in the blood of Christ ; for he 
came only to save sinners. 

Another palpable misrepresentation is that our article 



A CONTROVERSY. 43 

" is dishonoring to God, and is infidelity," when every 
candid reader knows that our article gives God all the 
praise, honor, glory, power, knowledge, wisdom, and 
makes Him omniscient and omnipresent, "who worketh 
all things after the counsel of his own will " (Eph. i. 2), 
and strips man of everything, excluding all boastings, 
and puts him in the dust of humility, at the feet of Jesus, 
pleading for mercy, peradventure God humbles him by 
sending the spirit of His love into his heart, quickening 
him into spiritual life, without which spiritual life man 
remains the same babbler and bigot that Mr. "Red" 
accuses us of being ; but, in fact, if belongs to him and 
his creed ; doing many wonderful good works, for which 
the Master once told a host of his brethren to depart, for 
he never knew them. 

The little "faction" that Mr. "Red" is pleased to say 
was led off by Daniel Parker in the spirit, is another 
misrepresentation ; but Daniel Parker and a few others 
were the genuine followers of the precepts and examples 
of the meek and lowly Jesus and his early disciples, as 
we are amply able to prove by a " Thus saith the Lord." 
And they being a little flock, was the most powerful de- 
monstrative characteristic of their being the true people 
of God, as typified in their not going off with the multi- 
tude, as did the so-called missionaries ; but they stayed 
with Jesus and his apostles, as typified by the little band 
that stayed with Jesus, and said, when Jesus asked the 
question, "Will ye also go away ?" Then Simon Peter 
answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou 



44 A CONTROVERSY. 

hast the words of eternal life." — John vi. 67, 68. God's 
chosen or elect people have ever been represented in 
small numbers, and in remnants, and haye been wrought 
upon with many trials ; and so are the Old Baptists to- 
day ; and when they see large numbers, and a great re- 
ligious tumult, they know from the New Testament 
Scriptures that the Spirit of Christ is not there. "For 
God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in 
all churches of the saints." — 1st Cor. xiv. 33. Another 
powerful characteristic that the Old Baptists are the true 
church of Christ and his early disciples, is that they were 
few in numbers compared with the multitude, and won- 
derfully hated, crucified, beheaded, cast into prison, etc. 
And that the Old Baptists are hated and hunted down 
with more sarcasm and derision than all the other 
denominations, no intelligent person would dare deny; 
and, no doubt, they would be equally punished with the 
disciples of old, but (thanks be to the giver of all things) 
the strong arm of the law protects them. 

Why is it that the Old Baptists are sneered and hissed 
at ? Because they will not brother and sister and nego- 
tiate and amalgamate with the daughters of the old har- 
lot of Eome (false churches), and bid them God speed, 
by partaking of their evil deeds. 

So it was with Jesus and his early disciples. And be- 
cause they would not amalgamate with the daughters of 
the old harlot (false churches), they were hissed at, per- 
secuted, crucified, cast into prison, etc. "And rejoiced 
that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his 



A CONTROVERSY. 45 

That there are hundreds and thousands of regenerated 
men and women caught in the nets of these lewd 
women, no intelligent Old Baptist will deny ; and for 
such, all intelligent Old Baptists have full and undivided 
Christian fellowship. And why ? Because they are ever 
ready to give a reason of their hope, based upon an ac- 
ceptable Christian experience. But they cannot eat and 
drink with them in a church capacity. And why ? Be- 
cause they are living in disorder, with one of the daught- 
ers of Antichrist (false churches). 

We will now advertise our friend "Red" that should 
he attempt to prove up a bona fide title to the name, 
" Primitive Baptist," we will not receive any testimony 
that has been published since the so-called missionaries 
left the Old Baptists, from the fact that any people who 
will teach a false doctrine, will publish a false history. 
We will further notify him that we have another article 
in embiyo, on Bible two-seed doctrine, (not Daniel Park- 
er) that will furnish him with constant employment the 
balance of his natural life, as he has undertaken the task 
of refuting the great fundamental truths of the Bible. 
We also propose to furnish our readers a diagram of the 
Antichristian churches, and compare it with the dia- 
gram of the true church of Christ, both of which will be 
measured by the measuring rod of God's own choosing, 
and expose Mr. Red's fallacy "to public gaze," as he pro- 
poses to expose our article. Eespectfully, 

S. M. CARLTON. 

Oct. 27, 1881. 



46 A CONTROVERSY. 

Keply to Dr. S. M. Carlton. 

Ed. Tbies : — I come before the readers of your excel- 
lent paper to redeem a promise I made some time since, 
to answer some of the leading points of Dr. S. M. Carl- 
ton's theory of the plan of salvation, as published in your 
issues of September 8th and loth. Since that time the 
Doctor has written three very abusive articles, not only 
against me, but against all who would call in question 
the truth of his theory, for which I hope the Lord will 
forgive him. 

I would much rather that an abler pen than mine had 
taken this subject in hand. But whether I be a Primi- 
tive Baptist or not, I feel it to be my duty, "as much as 
in me is," to defend Primitive Christianity. Therefore I 
present this article in the fear of Cod, praying for the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, that the fair name of God 
may be honored. 

It will be hard to put the Doctor's article in a position 
to answer in a logical manner, from the fact that near 
the middle of his first article is really the starting point, 
and he presents the whole thing under the form of ques- 
tions and answers — questions which no intelligent Bible 
student would ask. He first speaks of the power of God, 
His foreknowledge, etc., which, of course, we do not 
deny. But he thinks it would be very unjust in God to 
make a law that He knew, according to His foreknowl- 
edge, man would violate. 

Now, God saves men upon principles of justice, which 
we will find from an investigation of His word. We 



A CONTROVERSY. 47 

learn from this that when the work of creation was 
finished, it was pronounced "good, and very good." In 
this work was included the formation of man, as to his 
body, out of "the dust of the ground," while "God 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man be- 
came a living soul." — Gen.ii. 7. This language suggests 
the superiority of man to the various orders of animals ; 
but it is more clearly set forth in these words : "And 
God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our 
likeness ; and let them have dominion over the fish of 
the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle, 
and over all the earth, and every creeping thing that 
creepeth upon the earth." — Gen. i. 26. Man was to be 
the lord of the lower creation. 

We will now investigate the meaning of the words, 
"And God said, Let us make man in our own image, 
after our likeness." Dr. Carlton says, "Of course the 
humanity of Jesus Christ was present with God, and 
was the temple of the Spirit of God, forming the unity 
of the Father, Son and Spirit ; and as man could not 
have been made like a spirit, he was made after the 
image of Jesus, corporally. " I have no doubt but what 
the Doctor would argue that there is a difference between 
the likeness of God and the image of God. But I contend 
that the image of God is his likeness, and his likeness is 
his image. Therefore I conclude that man was made a 
rational being : in this he differed from all inferior ani- 
mals. The difference between them and man is as wide 
as the poles, for man is rational ; he is endowed with 



48 A CONTROVERSY. 

mental faculties. Although these did not escape in the 
fall, yet man is still rational. The Apostle James says. 
•'Made after the s im ilitude of God. /V — James hi. 9. 

It is quite manifest that of all the numerous orders of 
earthly creatines, man alone was made in his rational 
nature after the image of God. I would further say that 
he was made after the moral image of God : that is, he 
was created a holy being ; and this was the chief glory 
with which he was crowned. "God made man up- 
right." — Ec. vii. 29. Man's original state was a state of 
innocence, integrity, uprightness, and polity. The ap- 
proving smile of God was upon him. "And the Lord God 
took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden, to 
dress it and to keep it ; and the Lord God commanded 
the man. Baying, Of every tree of the Garden thou mayest 
freely eat ; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and 
evil thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eat- 
est thereof thou shalt sorely die." — Gen. ii. 15. 17. This 
is the law of God given to the one man Adam, who stood 
as the first man, the head and representative of the whole 
human family. 2sow this law would have been imto life 
had he kept it. and threatened death upon the breach 
thereof. Yet he did not long abide in this honor. Satan, 
using the subtlety of the serpent to seduce Eve, then 
by her seducing Adam, who without any compulsion did 
willfully transgress the law, which was the command 
given them, in eating the forbidden fruit, by this act 
they fell from their original righteousness and commun- 
ion with God, and all their posterity with them. There 



A CONTROVERSY. 49 

is not now, never has been, or ever will be, any of the 
human family but what was represented in this fall. 
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of 
God." — Eom. hi. 23. "Wherefore as by one man sin 
entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death 
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." — Eom. v. 
12. All becoming dead in sin and wholly defiled in all 
the faculties and parts of soul and body. "Unto the 
pure all things are pure ; but unto them that are defiled 
and unbelieving, is nothing pure ; but ever their minds 
and consciences are defiled. " — Titus i. 15. ' 'And God saw 
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and 
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was 
only evil continually." — Gen. vi. 5. "As it is written, 
There is none righteous, no, not one ; there is none that 
understandeth ; there is none that seeketh after God ; 
they are all gone out of the way ; they are together be- 
come unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, 
not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre. With their 
tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is 
under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bit- 
terness ; their feet are swift to shed blood ; destruction 
and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have 
they not known. There is no fear of God before their 
eyes." — Eom. iii. 10, 19. 

We have now briefly gone through the creation of man, 
his standing in the Garden of Eden as the representative 
of all the human family, his capacity to keep the law as 
God had given it, his transgression and fall, and the 
present condition of all mankind. 



50 A CONTROVERSY. 

We will now refer our readers to Dr. Carlton's theory. 
We will bring the leading points of it to the front ; for 
the whole article hinges on one leading point. The Doc- 
tor says, " Suppose we say that the family of perdition 
stood condemned in the mind of Jehovah before all the 
worlds were, and that their spiritual existence was vir^ 
tually in the loins of Satan before God spoke into exist- 
ence their natural being, and that the people of Anti- 
christ were raised in the fall of Adam from their degra- 
dation in hell (in a spiritual sense), to a level with the 
heirs of promise (in a natural sense), who were in Christ 
spiritually before the world was, and both families shook 
hands, as it were, in the persons of Adam and Eve, nat- 
urally and morally." 

Now, according to this, a part of the inhabitants of 
this world came up from the infernal regions of hell, and 
a part came down from the bright land of glory. There 
is not a solitary passage in the Bible that would lead any 
man to believe this. It is homespun — the production of 
a mind run wild on theory. It is dishonoring to God, 
and a reproach on the fair name of our mother Eve, as 
you will see, as we uncover the child more and more. 
Dr. Carlton has it wonderfully wrapped and covered, to 
hide its deformity. But I know its father— Daniel Park- 
er. It is not like the babe that lay in the manger, but it 
is as one coming from the horrible pit from which the 
Doctor says a part of the human family came. I am 
astonished at Dr. Carlton, claiming to be an Old Baptist 
and believing such a theory. 



A CONTROVERSY. 51 

I have just looked through the confession of faith of 
seven Baptist churches of Wales, of A.D. 1643. Such a 
theory was not in existence among that people, neither 
is it laid down in their abstract of faith. I also have be- 
fore me the confession of the assembly of Baptists of 
England, A.D. 1689, called, in America, the " Philadel- 
phia Confession." I find no such theory among them. 

If I was an Anti-Missionary Baptist, I certainly would 
sue Dr. Carlton for damages, for publishing any such 
creed over my name. But I must examine the theory a 
little further, and, to use the Doctor's own expression, 
handle it without gloves, and present it just as it was 
presented by its founder, and, I suppose, as it is under- 
stood by Dr. Carlton, that the serpent spoken of in the 
Garden of Eden was a real personal devil, and that there 
was a sexual intercourse between him and Eve, and hence 
the children of the devil were brought into existence. 
This is what he means when he so mildly puts it that the 
two seeds shook hands in Adam. I understand this 
hand-shaking in Adam. I read these " doses" long be- 
fore I saw Dr. Carlton, but not from the Bible. I have 
heard it harped upon by its adherents on the streets. 
especially where men meet to whittle on empty goods 
boxes, and I have heard it a few times from the pulpit. 
Those that generally believe it (and they are few) try to 
wrap it up to hide its deformity, as the Doctor has done. 

Now candid reader, we have before us the two seeds> 
as represented in Dr. Carlton's theory — the natural de- 
scendants of the devil, and the natural descendants of 



52 A CONTROVERSY. 

Adam. The devil's race were all the children of the in- 
fernal regions from before the foundation of the world. 
Adam's race were all the children of God from before the 
foundation of the world. 

Now, the advocates of this theory hold that the two 
races are kept separate and distinct, and were so at the 
coming of Christ ; hence this is one of their passages, 
"ye are the children of your father, the devil," etc. — 
John viii. 44. 

I ask, who were the people thus addressed? They 
were the Jews, the natural descendants of Abraham, and 
could be traced back through him to Adam. So the 
passage does not support the theory. If the two seeds or 
races are not kept separate and distinct, we have to-day 
a conglomerated mass indeed. Such an amalgamation is 
fearful. Where would their final home be ? Echo an- 
swers, Where ? 

But the advocates of this theory insist and contend 
that they are and ever have been kept separate ; that 
one of the children of Adam will not marry one of 
the children of the devil ; that is, they do not inter- 
marry. Mark the legitimate conclusion. As I said in 
my former article, they are saved by families, infants 
and all. 

According to the Doctor's own statement, the children 
of God, which came down into Adam, and the children 
of the lower regions, which were raised in Adam, all re- 
turn to the home from whence they came. What other 
conclusion can we logically come to ? The theory con- 



A CONTROVERSY. 53 

tends that none except the race of Adam was represented 
in the precious life and blood of the Lamb. 

BED. 
Nov. 10, 1881. 

(To be Continued.) 



Keply to Dr. S. M. Carlton. — Continued. 
Quoting again from the Doctor, and his perversions of 
this Scripture, " For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
shall all be made alive," the Doctor says, " The ransomed 
of the Lord were all that were in Adam, in a spiritual 
sense, at the time of his transgression. So Christ died 
for all that fell in Adam, as Adam at that time was not 
contaminated with the wicked principles of Satan, as he 
was not yet defiled ; but was made susceptible (together 
with Eve) to the conception and germination of the chil- 
dren of wrath." We come to the conclusion that from 
the above statement, and from the Doctor's exposition of 
this passage, that those who were not represented in 
Adam cannot die temporally. For temporal death came 
through Adam, by his violating the law of Grod. "In 
the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." The 
thing is too absurd to admit of argument. Upon this 
hypothesis, it follows that those who were not repre- 
sented in Christ, cannot possibly be raised from the dead. 
So the seed of the devil, which the Doctor speaks of, to 
use his own language, " will sink back into nonentity." 
It appears to me, if this race are really the legitimate 
children of the devil, and have once been in hell, as the 



54 A CONTROVERSY. 

Doctor says, as much as all who fell in Adam had once 
been in heaven, hell would not be a place of punishment, 
but of enjoyment, from the fact that they, without the 
loss of one , are permitted to return back home from 
whence they came ; for in a human sense it is always a 
joy after a long absence to return home to dwell with 
kindred spirits. There could be no remorse from the fact 
that there had been nothing lost. There could be no in- 
creased wrath of God, for they had only acted their part 
that God intended they should ; the only condemnation 
that possibly could be : that they had not been as faithful 
in sin as they ought to have been. For, according to the 
theory, they are only serving the purpose of God. But 
we learn from the Bible that one man lifted up his eyes 
in torment, who certainly was one of the natural de- 
scendants of Adam. He saw Lazarus afar off, in Abra- 
ham's bosom, and cried, " Father Abraham," etc. 
Hence he was a natural descendant of Abraham, and 
could be traced back through him to Adam. It appears 
that he did not enjoy his home, that he did not want his 
five brethren to come home, but rather prayed that Laz- 
arus be sent back to this world, to warn them, that they 
come not to this place of torment. It appears that there 
had been means of escape provided, or it would have been 
folly in the extreme to have had them warned. The 
great misery of the lost will be that we have made our 
bed in hell. We next present the case of the flood. Let 
us see if the two seeds are preserved, (for we are argu- 
ing from the Daniel Parker standpoint,) two natural 



A CONTROVERSY. 55 

seeds. "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou, 
and all thy house, into the Ark ; for in thee have I seen 
righteousness before me in this generation. And Noah 
did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. 
And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his 
son's wives with him into the ark, because of the 
waters of the flood."— Gen. vii. 1, 5, 7. Now, the word 
says, these were righteous ; at any rate their genealogy 
can be traced back to Adam. I cannot see where the 
natural descendants of the devil got in, unless they 
came in with the beast, or some of the creeping things ; 
then it follows that they could not have been human 
beings. I must here say to my friend Dr. Carlton that 
it is bad theory to admit that the devil has creative 
power, and as you say, his " seed was in his loins," which 
leads our mind to procreative power, as a matter of 
course, which germinated through Eve the natural 
children of the devil. 

We again quote from the Doctor's theory, " The devil 
being deceitful and cunning, he confronted the woman, 
and she sinned against the command of God, and Adam 
loved her, and died to the love of holiness, and was made 
alive to the love of sin, by partaking of her sins, that he 
might live with her. Hence we see that the tares were 
sown with the wheat ; and never until this sin was 
Adam and Eve capable of the conception and germina- 
tion of the children of wrath, for the spiritual germs did 
not exist in them, as they were free from sin, or they 
could not have been good. So was the field free from 



56 A CONTROVERSY. 

tares when the wheat was sown ; but there came an 
enemy afterwards and sowed tares with the wheat. And 
as Adam and Eve represent the field, the hens of 
promise were sown in them first, and afterwards the 
serpent sowed the seed of Satan in them ; and as wheat 
and tares grow together in the same field or soil, from 
the same culture, so in like manner do the heirs of 
promise and the heirs of perdition, conceive, germinate 
and mature from the same natural parents. See alle- 
gories of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Isaac and Ish- 
mael." My object in quoting from this part of the Doc- 
tor's theory is to show his flat contradiction. For he 
said, as I showed in my former article, "That the chil- 
dren of perdition were in the loins of their father the 
devil." Here he would leave' the impression that they 
were sown in Adam and Eve ; yet he claims the two 
natural seeds, and refers us to the allegories of Cain and 
Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. Now, what 
he, and all who are in harmony with his theory, mean 
by this, is that Cain, Ishmael and Esau were the natural 
descendants of the devil. His perversion of the parable 
of the wheat and tares, Mat. xiii., 37. The Doctor says 
that "Adam and Eve represent the field." But Christ 
says, in the 38th verse of the above quoted chapter, that 
" the field is the world. He that soweth the good seed 
is the Son of man," meaning himself, dispensing truth, 
either personally or by his servants. 

For by the appointment of Christ the good seed of the 
gospel is to be sown among all nations, so that the visi- 



A CONTROVERSY. 57 

ble church shall be co-extensive with the world. And 
that many are now in the visible church who have not 
been born of the Spirit, and such will be the case at the 
end of the world. Like the foolish virgins, who took 
their lamps, but no oil with them. — Mat. xxv. 3. But 
the Doctor insists that this parable refers to Adam and 
Eve in the Garden of Eden. That the devil was the 
enemy who sowed the tares by his procreative power. 
We know that the tares are the children of the devil, in 
a figurative sense, but not brought into existence as rep- 
resented by the Doctor's theory, as we will see by an ex- 
amination of the account given of the fall of man. 

As I said in my former article, man was created in 
the moral image of God. That is, he was created a holy 
being, and the character of God was the standard of moral 
right and moral perfection. 

" And the Lord God took the man, and put him into 
the Garden of Eden, to dress it and keep it. And the 
Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree 
of the Garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the tree of 
the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it ; 
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely 
die." — Gen. ii. 15, IT. These words were addressed to 
Adam before Eve was formed. So Eve received the law 
through Adam. She was not self-existent, being separ- 
ate and distinct from Adam, u Bone of his bones, and 
flesh of his flesh." Adam stood as the head and repre- 
sentative of all the human family ; that is every human 
being, beginning with Cain and Abel, that has lived or is 



58 A CONTROVERSY. 

now living on the face of the earth. I adopt the words 
of Paul in Athens, when he says that God " hath made 
of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the 
face of the earth ; and hath determined the times before 
appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." — Acts 
xvii. 26. This of course means that every nation, and 
all the individuals composing every nation, have de- 
scended from a common stock. This shows the fallacy 
of the Doctor's theory of a devil with all of his children 
created in him. For this would necessarily place two 
heads or representatives in the Garden ; one for the seed 
of Adam, the other for the seed of the devil. We 
notice next the cause of the first sin in Adam and Eve ; 
the temptation, too, does not appear to be so very strong. 
They were permitted to eat the fruit of all the trees in 
the Garden, except one. Only one prohibition was laid 
upon them. They were told that if they violated this 
prohibition, a terrible evil, death, would come upon them. 
So far as we can judge, there was no reason in favor of 
eating the forbidden fruit, and a reason of tremendous 
strength in favor of abstaining from it. The serpent, 
however, beguiled Eve, and she ate the fatal fruit, giv- 
ing it to her husband, who also ate. Paul tells us that 
"Adam was not deceived; but the woman, being de- 
ceived, was in the transgression." — I Tim. ii. 14. Eve was 
beguiled and sinned under deception ; but Adam sinned, 
as we say, with his eyes open. He knew what he was 
doing, and cast the blame of his act on God, saying, " The 
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me 



A CONTROVERSY. 59 

of the tree, and I did eat." — Gen. iii. 12. Eve, though 
acting under a mistake and a delusion, was by no means 
excusable ; but Adam was far more inexcusable than 
she ; for he acted intelligently, as well as voluntarily. 
The part which the devil played in this transgression was 
not to sow any literal tares ; but as an evil spirit, he used 
a deceptive argument, which penetrated Eve's heart, 
through her mind, and caused her to disbelieve God. 
Adam's sin was of the same nature, although he was 
"not deceived;" yet he consented to disobey God, and 
consent is of the heart, and must have preceded the ex- 
ternal act of disobedience. It seems plain to my mind 
that the sin of our first parents had its origin in their 
hearts. I cannot see where the parable of the wheat 
and tares fits in this transaction. Neither do I see a 
generation brought into existence by the devil. But we 
see that Adam and Eve sinned, because they had the 
power to do it under this covenant of works. The 
threatened penalty claims attention. " In the day that 
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The bodies 
of Adam and Eve did not die actually on the day of 
transgression ; but they died virtually. Not only did the 
moral death of Adam result from his sin, but the natural 
death of all of his posterity results from the same cause. 
There is something more than the death of the body 
meant by the threatening, " Thou shalt surely die." 
Spiritual death was evidently referred to ; and it is far 
more fearful than bodily death. The latter takes place 
when the spirit leaves the body ; the former takes place 



60 A CONTROVERSY. 

when God leaves the spirit. The cessation of union, 
communion and fellowship with God is so great a cal- 
amity that death is its fittest designation. Adam and 
Eve died a spiritual death the very day they sinned 
against God. They were cut off from Him as the source 
of their happiness and joy. No longer did they live in 
the light of His countenance, with His smiles resting 
upon them ; but they walked in darkness, and trembled 
under the frown of the Almighty. It is written of the 
apostate head of our race, '*' Therefore the Lord God sent 
him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground 
from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man ; 
and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden Cheru- 
bim and a flaming sword which turned every way, to 
keep the way of the tree of life." — Gen. hi. 23, 24. 
Nov 24, 1881. EED. 

{To be continued.) 



Eeply to Dr. S. M. Carlton.— Continued. 
As we said in our former article, Adam, though creat- 
ed holy, did not remain in that state, but by voluntary 
transgression fell therefrom, bringing ruin on himself, 
and his posterity. His sinful nature is propagated by 
ordinary generation, and the propagation had an early 
beginning; for it is said of Adam that he " begat 
a son in his own likeness, after his image. " — Gen. v. 
3. This declaration is specially worthy of notice, in view 
of the fact that " God created man in his own image." — 



A CONTROVERSY. 61 

Gen. i. 27. Had Adam remained in his state of inno- 
cence, no donbt his children would have been born as he 
was created, namely, in the moral image of God. But he 
sinned, and humanity becoming poisoned in its source 
has transmitted poisonous streams only through all gen- 
erations. Paul, assuming as true the universal corrup- 
tion of human nature, refers to "the children of disobe- 
dience," and says, as we have seen, that himself and the 
members of the church of Ephesus had formerly a place 
among them. "Among whom also we all had our con- 
versation in time past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling 
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by na- 
ture the children of wrath, even as others." — Eph. ii. 3. 
Children of sin ; and if we are by nature children of 
wrath, we are by nature children of sin. All unregenerated 
men stand before God just alike, and are denominated 
children of wrath, children of sin, children of the wicked 
one, children of the devil, tares. And all the names that 
Dr. Carlton would call up in proof that they were the 
natural descendants of the devil, only go to prove what 
we have before stated, that all become sinners by the 
transgression of one man. Hence David said, " Behold, 
I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother con- 
ceive me." — Ps. Ii. 5. "For we have before proved 
both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin ; as 
it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one ; there 
is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh 
after God." — Rom. iii. 9, 11. This is a severe indictment 
of the human race, for it includes Jews and Gentiles, 



62 A CONTROVERSY. 

the two divisions of the race, and declares all guilty be- 
fore God. Every mouth is stopped, in view of the just 
sentence of condemnation pronounced by the law. This 
is what is usually called the moral law, the only law 
whose jurisdiction extends to "all the world." It is 
manifest that the foregoing Scripture teaches man's con- 
demnation, and his depravity. He is condemned be- 
cause he has transgressed the law of God, and not be- 
cause, as Dr. Carlton contends, that it was so fixed by 
the decrees of God before the f omidation of the world ; 
or that they were the children of the devil, and came up 
from the infernal regions. We have repeatedly said 
that Dr. Carlton's theory is dishonoring to God. This I 
think I have shown in my former articles, but propose to 
show it again by quoting from him. He says, " Provi- 
dence has wisely put into the minds of all men to believe 
that there is a chance for them individually to be saved. 
Even the heirs of perdition believe alike with the heirs 
of promise, (prior to regeneration) that they will be, or 
can be, saved upon legal principles, and are ever trying 
to court the favor of God upon law principles, hoping 
to bring God under obligations to save them." This is 
very dishonoring to God indeed, to presume to say that 
he would fix a law in order to delude a part of the human 
family. But to put it more in harmony with the Doc- 
tor's arguments, that God would bring up a part of the 
children from the infernal regions, and fool them, mak- 
ing them believe that they could get to heaven, and amid 
all their striving God is only deluding them at every 



A CONTROVERSY. 63 

step. Far be it from God ; for he is a God of love, justice 
and mercy, and does not damn any one on any such prin- 
ciples ; but sinners are lost on principles of justice. They 
will not sink back, as Dr. Carlton says, into nonentity, 
but they will be punished. What is punishment ? It is 
the infliction of pain for disobedience. Punishment has 
reference to sin, and under the government of God it is 
the executed penalty, of His law. It is God who ex- 
ecutes this penalty, which is death. Some contend 
that the wicked will only be punished by painful mem- 
ories, remorse of conscience, and agony of despair. No 
doubt memory has to do with the miseries of the lost, 
but an operation of the memory is not- the penalty of the 
divine law. Eemorse of conscience is inseparable from 
the penalty, but it is not the penalty. The truth is, that 
the penalty of God's law is death. " The wages of sin 
is death ; but the gift of God is eternal life, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord." — Eom. vi. 23. 

God punishes them because they deserve to be pun- 
ished. This is the only true philosophy of punishment. 
The supreme reason why sinners are punished is that 
because of their sins, they deserve punishment. God, 
as moral governor of the universe, executes the penalty 
of His law. This fact enables us to understand what is 
meant by " the wrath of God." This is a scriptural 
phrase, and it denotes God's just and holy indignation 
against sin. This indignation arises from the fact that 
sin is a transgression of His law, and therefore His just- 
ice and holiness, yes, and His'goodness, too, imperatively 



64 A CONTROVERSY. 

requires that sinners be punished. There is no Bible in 
the Doctor's theory — no reason ; the very thought is 
blasphemous. That God would bring up children from 
the regions of hell in order to delude them ; give them 
bodies, make them believe they are going to heaven, 
then in the final judgment, say, "I was only acting the 
part of a deceiver in your case, for it was always my 
intention to send you to hell." Does Dr. Carlton and his 
adherents believe this ? Or do they use it only for 
argument's sake ? I will not accuse him as harshly 
as he did me, when he said that I advocated certain 
theories through dishonesty ; but I will say that it is a 
want of Bible knowledge on his part. Narrow views 
of God indeed, and of the plan of salvation, built up 
alone by isolated passages. Why not take the teaching 
of Jesus, who is so clear and plain upon the subject? ' Tor 
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life." — John hi. 16. This passage 
shows the universal love of God to all mankind ; and He 
loves to the extent, that notwithstanding the voluntary 
sin of man in violating His holy and righteous law, that 
He offers eternal life in and through His Son, the Lord 
Jesus Christ. The gospel is the means in the hands of 
God for the salvation of sinners. But the Doctor con- 
tends that the gospel is not a public address to sinners. 
We quote from his article : " The preaching of the gos- 
pel indiscriminately to all men is for the purpose of sup- 
plying his vessels of mercy with spiritual food, and is for 



A CONTROVERSY. 65 

the further purpose of confounding the brain religion of 
the mighty and wise of Antichrist, leaving Satan and his 
spiritual progeny without excuse, that they may not plead 
ignorance in the day of final retribution, thereby making 
their own condemnation more complete." Let us com- 
pare this with the Bible. " Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the gospel to every creature : he that belie veth 
and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not 
shall be damned." — Mark xvi. 15, 16. According to this 
commission, salvation is offered to the whole human 
family. 

Language could be neither more general nor more spe- 
cific. " Into all the world," to " every creature." But 
the fearful intimation is that some will not believe, and 
through unbelief will incur damnation. It is the duty 
of all to believe. Believe what? The gospel. " And the 
times of this ignorance God winked at ; but now com- 
mandeth all men everywhere to repent ; because He hath 
appointed a day in which He will judge the world in 
righteousness, by that man whom He hath ordained ; 
whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that 
He hath raised him from the dead." — Acts xvii. 30, 31. 
Other Scriptures might be quoted to prove the fallacy of 
the Doctor's position in regard to the preaching of the gos- 
pel, but we think the above quoted sufficient. In notic- 
ing his article farther, he destroys everything pertaining 
to the grace of God in the plan of salvation, in evidence 
of which I quote again from his article. 

Eef erring to sinners, he says : "They are lost upon a 



GQ A CONTROVERSY. 

principle of justice, and that justice is based upon the fact 
that the heirs of perdition, in a spiritual sense, are not 
God's. They came from the infernal regions, and they will 
return to Satan, the author of their spiritual existence; and 
in like manner, the heirs of promise will return to Christ 
in heaven, from whence they came, who is the author of 
their spiritual existence." I contend that it would be no 
act of grace for God to bestow upon his children what 
naturally belongs to them from all eternity. They go to 
heaven by right, and not by grace ; hence that good old 
hymn, "Amazing grace!" is wrong, and should have 
been written: 

" Amazing decree! how sweet the sound! 

That saved a child of God ; 
I never was lost, but was always found ; 

Never was blind, but did always see.*' 

According to the Doctor's theory, the word grace, that 
has been so precious to Christians in every age of the 
world, would be lost. 

No one is unworthy, according to the theory ; none 
are lost except the children of the devil, and they were 
created for that express purpose. No one is saved, ex- 
cept those who had once been in heaven ; hence the 
word grace is lost. The theory teaches eternal condem- 
nation upon the heirs of perdition. Eternal justification 
follows as to the heirs of promise as a matter of course, 
and I see not why eternal regeneration, or eternal adop- 
tion, or eternal sanctification, may not be as consistently 
advocated as eternal justification. The purpose of 



A CONTROVERSY. 67 

God will furnish as plausible arguments in the one case 
as in the other ; that is to say, it will furnish no argu- 
ments at all. Justification, according to the teachings 
of the Scriptures, always implies previous condemnation. 
If, then, justification dates back from eternity, shall we 
say that condemnation was antecedent to eternity ? This 
would be absurd. The position which we assume is that 
all are condemned, all are lost, and that none are justi- 
fied only by faith in Christ, and are therefore justified 
when they believe on him, which is proven by the fol- 
lowing Scriptures : "He that believe th on him is not 
condemned ; but he that believeth not is condemned 
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the 
only begotten Son of God." — I John hi. 18. "And by 
him all that believe are justified from all things from 
which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." — 
Acts. xiii. 39. " Therefore being justified by faith, we 
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." — 
Rom. v. 1. The Doctor says, "God saves them because 
they are His, and rejects them because they are not His." 
Let us see how this corresponds with the doctrine of 
adoption as taught in the Bible. 

The theory makes God adopt His own children, who 
were His from all eternity. Such an idea is contrary to 
the teachings of the Bible, or human reason. We will 
briefly illustrate the doctrine of adoption. By this pro- 
cess, children are taken from families of which they are 
natural members, introduced into other families, and 
made to sustain a legal relation thereto — a relation simi- 



68 A CONTROVERSY. 

lar in its results to those of the natural relation. Such 
children are recognized as the children of those who had 
them adopted, and become their heirs. In view of this 
definition of civil adoption we can easily see that spirit- 
ual adoption is the act by which God takes those who 
are denominated in the Scriptures children of wrath, 
children of the wicked one, children of the devil, into a 
new relation to Himself — a filial relation, involving their 
recognition and treatment as children. They are dis- 
tinguished by the appellation, "Sons and daughters of 
the Lord Almighty." — II Cor. vi. 18. I have briefly 
gone through with the Doctor's -theory of the plan of 
salvation, and have shown, I think, to all unbiased 
minds, that it is unscriptural, and, as I said in the out- 
set, dishonoring to God. I will in my next, prove that 
the Missionary Baptists are the Primitive Baptists. 

Eespectfully, 
Dec. 1st, 1881. EED. 



Who are the Primitive Baptists? 

I quote from Dr. Carlton's article of Oct. 27th, " We 
wish it distinctly understood that personally we are a 
friend to Mr. Red, but a bitter enemy to his religious 
dogmas ; and when we take off our gloves to handle his 
assertions and perversions, we mean to do him no per- 
sonal harm. The devil himself was not more presump- 
tuous when he confronted our mother Eve in the Garden 
of Eden, and gave God the lie, than is our friend Red 



A CONTROVERSY. 69 

when he attempts to claim the name of 4 Old School or 
Primitive Baptist ; ' neither was the devil further from 
the truth than is our friend Red, and his assertions and 
presumptions will ever stand as assertions and presump- 
tions without proof ; for every honest historian knows 
the fallacy of his pretense, and he is now begging the 
question and desiring to be called by her name, to im- 
mortalize his shame, and is climbing up Gome other way 
as a thief and a robber." — John x. 1. 

These are very grave accusations Dr. Carlton has 
brought against me. No doubt it would stir the Irish 
blood in my veins, were it not that I am so well ac- 
quainted with him. He always has a certain quantity 
of gas on hand, and that must escape, it matters not 
what he goes at ; so I shall pay no attention to the gassy 
and abusive part of his article, but will briefly show by 
Scripture and history who are the Primitive Baptists, 
the Missionary or Anti-missionary Baptists. I will first 
give a brief definition of a church. A church is a con- 
gregation of Christ's baptized disciples, united in the belief 
of what he has said, and covenanted to do what he has 
commanded. 

I now ask, who were the first in the church ? Paul 
answers the question. " And God hath set some in the 
church ; first Apostles." — I Cor. xii. 28. Then to 
whom was the commission given? " Co ye into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that be- 
lieveth not shall be damned." The Anti- Missionaries 



TO A CONTROVERSY. 

contend that the above quoted commission was given 
alone to the apostles, and hence ended with them ; but I 
contend that it was given to the church ; for the apostles 
were first in the church. Then the first church which 
was organized by Jesus Christ was a missionary body, 
commissioned to go forth and to preach the gospel to 
every creature. But did this Jerusalem church, estab- 
lished by Christ himself, send out N missionaries ? Yes ; 
for it is said in Acts, " Then tidings of these things came 
unto the ears of the church which was at Jerusalem ; 
and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far 
as Antioch." — Acts xi. 22. Yes, this model church sent 
out a missionary to a heathen city to preach the gospel. 
This was a foreign mission. Thus we have seen that 
the church organized by the personal ministry of Christ 
was a missionary church ; for as we have stated, she 
sent forth Barnabas to Antioch to preach the gospel. 
And this church at Antioch, gathered by missionary 
labor, sent out Barnabas and Paul on a mission to the 
heathen. " And when they had fasted and prayed, and 
laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they 
being sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed unto Seleu- 
cia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus." — Acts 
xiii. 3, 4. 

And after these eminent missionaries had preached the 
gospel successfully to many heathen cities, they returned 
to the same church and made a report of their labors and 
success in their mission, which is thus recorded : " And 
when they were come, and had gathered the church to- 



A CONTROVERSY. 71 

gether, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, 
and how He had opened the door of faith unto the Gen- 
tiles."— Acts xiy. 37. 

We have now proven that the churches at Jerusalem 
and Antioch were missionary churches. And of a 
Christian, Paul said, "And we have sent with him 
[Titus] the brother, whose praise is in the gospel through- 
out all the churches ; and not that only, but who was 
also chosen of the churches to travel with us," etc. — 
II Cor. viii. 18, 19. This brother was chosen of the 
churches and sent on a mission, and these brethren were 
called " messengers of the churches." 

As we have shown that the model church at Jerusalem, 
and some of the churches planted by the apostles, were 
missionary, it is evident that all these churches were of 
the same character, from the fact that they were organ- 
ized under the direction of the Spirit. And in regard to 
the support of these missionaries, Paul says, ' ' Even so 
hath the Lord ordained, that they which preach the gos- 
pel should live of the gospel." — I Cor. ix. 14. 

Here is the f oreordination and decree of God for the 
support of the ministry. And more, the apostle Paul 
ventured to take wages for his support in the missionary 
work. He said, " I robbed other churches, taking wages 
of them, to do you service." — II Cor. xi. 8. But, if a 
modern missionary does the same thing, it is considered 
by our anti-brethren a very high crime. And Dr. Carl- 
ton says, it is soul-saving for money. Hence, accordiog 
to the Doctor's theory, Paul was a very bad man. 



T2 A CONTROVERSY. 

We will next show by history that in the separation 
the anti- missionary Baptists were the seceding party, 
which withdrew from the regular missionary Baptists. 
This secession upon the part of the anti-missionaries oc- 
cured at different times in different parts of the country. 
In Virginia, the separation took place in the year 1832. 
We quote from Religious Denominations of the United 
States and Great Britain, page 87, in which Elder S. 
Trott, who was an anti-missionary Baptist, says : " This 
separation occasioned the splitting of several associations, 
and many churches. We took, as a distinguishing 
appellation, the name, Old School or Primitive Baptists." 
Here is the candid confession of a leading anti-missionary 
Baptist, that those who are now claiming to be Old School 
or Primitive Baptists separated themselves from the rest 
of the denomination, and took a stand as a distinct peo- 
ple ; and at that time, about 1832, the appellation or 
name, Old School Baptists. Therefore, according to El- 
der Trott, there was no body of Baptists in the world call- 
ing themselves Old School prior to the year 1832. 

Dr. John Watson says, in "Old Baptist Test," page 
36 : " After my own painful separation from the Mission- 
aries in 1836, (this was in Tennessee) a number of 
churches in the bounds of the Old Concord Association 
met together and formed the Stone Eiver Association." 
Hence we see from their own statement that they split 
off from the regular Missionary Baptists, and were but 
a faction. But were the ancient Baptists, up to the time 
of the separation, missionaries or anti-missionaries ? The 



A CONTROVERSY. 73 

Philadelphia Association, from our earliest account of it, 
was a missionary body. To place this beyond dispute, I 
shall quote a few items from the official records of that 
body. Dec. 8th, 1881. 

{Concluded next week.) 



Who are the Primitive Baptists ? — Continued. 

Turn to Benedict's history of the Baptists, vol. 2, page 
99, and you will see that in 1753 the Philadelphia Asso- 
ciation sent out Eld. John Gano as a missionary to the 
churches in North Carolina, which were soon after form- 
ed into the Kehukee Association. The next year, 1754, 
the association sent two other missionaries to assist him, 
Elders Benjamin Miller and Peter P. Yanhorn, by the in- 
strumentality of whose united labors these churches, 
previously deranged, were reclaimed and set in order, and 
many sinners converted." In this quotation it is shown 
that the largest and most influential association in Amer- 
ica, the Philadelphia, was a missionary body, and that 
Kehukee Association was formed as the fruit of the labors 
of her missionaries, eighty years prior to the anti-mis- 
sionary separation. 

We are informed by Benedict, the historian, page 642, 
in his chapter on Virginia, that the first Baptist church 
in that state was organized by Eobert Nordin, a mission- 
ary, who sailed from England in 1814. His brother mis- 
sionary, Thomas White, who sailed with him, died before 
they reached America, but Eld. Nordin was joined a few 



74 A CONTROVERSY. 

years after his arrival by the two other missionary preach- 
ers, Casper Mintz and Eichard Jones, from England, who* 
aided in planting the first Baptist churches in Virginia 
and North Carolina. These Baptists were so filled with 
the missionary spirit that a few f amilies which moved to 
North Carolina in ten years became sixteen churches. 

Thus, in examining the history of the Old Baptists of 
America, more than one hundred years before the anti- 
missionary separation, we find that these Old Baptists 
were missionaries. The Charleston Association, honored 
for its antiquity, piety, intelligence and orthodoxy, was 
formed the 21st day of Oct., 1751. In 1755, four years 
after the constitution, there is this account given in Fur- 
man's history of the Charleston Association, Charleston 
edition of 1811, pages 10 and 11: "The associations, 
taking into consideration the destitute condition of many 
places in the interior settlements of this and the neigh- 
boring states (then provinces), recommended to the 
churches to make contributions for the support of a mis- 
sionary to itinerate in those parts. Mr. Hart was au- 
thorized and requested, provided a sufficient sum should 
be raised, to procure, if possible, a suitable person for the 
purpose. 

With this view he visited Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
the following year, and prevailed with Eev. John Gano 
to undertake the service, who attended the annual meet- 
ing, and was cordially received. The association re- 
quested Mr. Gano to visit the Yadkin first, and after- 
wards to bestow his labors wherever Providence should 



A CONTROVERSY. 75 

i 

appear to direct. He devoted himself to the work. It 
afforded ample scope for his distinguished piety, eloquence 
and fortitude ; and his ministrations were crowned with 
remarkable success. Many embraced and professed the 
gospel. 

The following year he received from the association a 
letter of thanks for his faithfulness and industry in the 
mission." 

Thus we see that the Old Baptists of the old Charleston 
association were Missionary Baptists. 

We again call the attention of the reader to the doings 
of the Philadelphia association, which is the oldest and 
most influential association in America. This associa- 
tion was organized in 1707, and has continued to the 
present time. The minutes of this association for one 
hundred years are preserved in book form. We quote 
from page 97, which is the minutes of 1766. We have 
the following record : " After prayer, it was moved and 
agreed that it is most necessary for the good of the Bap- 
tist interest that the association have at their disposal 
every year a sum of money. Accordingly it was further 
agreed that the churches henceforth do make a collection 
every quarter, and send the same yearly to the associa- 
tion, to be by them deposited in the hands of trustees ; 
the interest whereof only to be by them laid out every 
year in support of ministers traveling on the errand of 
the churches, or otherwise, as the necessities of said 
churches shall require." Also on page 298, in the year 
1794, we have the following account of this association : 



76 A CONTROVERSY. 

"In consequence of information communicated to the 
association by Bro. Wm. Rogers, it is desired that all do- 
nations for the propagation of the gospel among the 
Hindoos in the East Indies, be forwarded to him." And 
in the next year, page 307, we have the following : 
"Agreed, that the churches be advised to make collec- 
tions for the missionaries to the East Indies, and forward 
the same to Dr. Rogers." 

The character of this body is set forth in the language 
of H. Gr. Jones, the editor of these minutes, on page 5. 

"The Philadelphia association, from the first, has en- 
gaged earnestly in efforts for the proper education of its 
ministers, and the spread of the gospel in the world. 
Rhode Island College, now Brown University, received 
its patronage and contributions from its origin, as the 
subsequent minutes show. It will be seen, also, that 
from the first it has been an effective missionary body. 
Hundreds of churches have been gathered by the able and 
self-denying men sent out at its expense to regions where 
no religious privileges had before been enjoyed," etc. 
From the foregoing reliable documents and others which 
might be introduced, it is fully settled that the American 
Baptists, from the very first, down to the anti-missionary 
separation, were missionaries. And, instead of the anti- 
missionaries being entitled to the appellation, Old School 
or Primitive Baptists, by way of distinction, they are a 
new-fangled set of Baptists, never heard of until the 
present century. So it is altogether a misrepresentation 
to call the anti-missionaries Old Baptists or Primitive 



A CONTROVERSY. 77 

Baptists. It not only does injustice to the regular Bap- 
tists of America, but also of England and Wales. In re- 
gard to the names assumed by the anti-missionaries, I 
would quote from an eminent historian: "Old School 
and Primitive Baptists are appellations so entirely out 
of place that I cannot, even as a matter of courtesy, use 
them without adding " so-called," or some such expres- 
sion . I have seen so much of the missionary spirit among 
the Old Anabaptists, Waldenses, and other ancient sects ; 
so vigorous and perpetual were the efforts of those 
Christains whom we claim as Baptists in the early, mid- 
dle, and latter ages, to spread the gospel in all parts of 
the world, among all nations and languages where they 
could gain access, that it is plain that those who merely 
preach predestination and do-nothing, have no claim to 
be called by their name." 

Had we space, we would prove by authenticated his- 
tory that the English and Welsh Baptists were mission- 
aries. We would advise our friend Dr. Carlton to read 
Baptist history more carefully before he makes such bold 
assertions. Eespectfully, 

Dec. 15th, 1881. EED. 



Carlton's Last Shot. 
Ed. Times : — We regret exceedingly the necessity of 
abridging our article with the limited space awarded to 
us in bringing this controversy to a close, but feel grate- 
ful to you for allowing us space to correct a part of the 



78 A CONTROVERSY. 

misrepresentations of Mr. "Red" upon our articles, he 
being notorious for perversions and misconstructions. 

We feel to compliment you for your preferment in 
stopping the controversy, knowing the aversion to a re- 
ligious controversy in a secular paper among the masses, 
without the argument happens to suit their particular 
creed. 

The stupidity of our friend "Bed" is preponderous, 
and leads him into many spiritual or religious dogmas, 
or he is wantonly perverting our meaning for policy's 
sake ; either of which would be bad enough in one who 
sets himself up to teach. He says : "We will now refer 
our readers to Dr. Carlton's theory. We will bring the 
leading points of it to the front ; for the whole article 
hinges on one leading point." " The Doctor says : Sup- 
pose we say that the family of perdition stood condemned 
in the mind of Jehovah before all worlds were, and 
that their spiritual existence was virtually in the loins of 
Satan, before God spoke into existence their natural be- 
ings ; and that the people of Antichrist were raised in 
the fall of Adam from their degradation in hell, (in a 
spiritual sense,) to a level with the heirs of promise, (in 
a natural sense) who were in Christ spiritually before the 
world was, and both families shook hands, as it were, 
in the persons of Adam and Eve, naturally and morally." 
"Now, according to this, a part of the inhabitants of 
this world came up from the infernal regions of hell, and 
a part came down from the bright land of glory. There 
is not a solitary passage in the Bible that would lead any 



A CONTROVERSY. 79 

man to believe this. It is homespun— the production of 
a mind run wild on theory. It is dishonoring to G-od, 
and a reproach on the fair name of our mother Eve. as 
you will see, as we uncover the child more and more. 
Dr. Carlton has it wonderfully wrapped and covered, to 
hide its deformity. But. I know its father. Daniel Par- 
ker. It is not like the babe that lay in the manger, but 
it is as one coming from the horrible pit, from which 
the Doctor says a part of the human fa mil y came. I 
am astonished at Dr. Carlton claiming to be an Old Bap- 
tist and believing such a theory." 

TTe here ask pardon for calli n g in question Mr. 
" Bed's " literature, and aptness for vulgar constructions, 
and would refer our readers to his proposed fleshly am- 
algamation with Eve and Satan in another part of essay. 
Xo one who has made any proficiency in English litera- 
ture can possibly construe our language so as to make 
it mean a fleshly two-seed doctrine. Xor can it be found 
in our ankle that there is any difference in the flesh. 
All flesh is as grass, and returns to its mother earth. 
The difference is in the spirit, and none ever have that 
warfare that Paul speaks of. between the opposing 
spirits, except the hens of promise, and they are by 
nature just like the hens of perdition. (Eph. h. B,) until 
God puts into then hearts the spirit of His love. Then 
the warfare commences, and continues the remainder of 
their natural lives. "And I will put enmity between 
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her 
seed : it shall bruise thv head, and thou shalt bruise his 



80 A CONTROVERSY. 

heel." — Gen. iii. 15. These two seeds are certainly op- 
posing spirits, for all flesh is alike. (Mr. "Bed" is 
pleased to call this Daniel Parker's two-seed doctrine.) 
Adam represents the flesh and spirit of Antichrist, and 
Christ represents the Spirit of God. " And so it is writ- 
ten, the first man Adam was made a living soul ; the 
last Adam was made a quickening Spirit. " — I Cor. xv. 
45. " The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second 
man is the Lord from heaven." — I Cor. xv. 47. These 
two personages, or representatives of the flesh and spirit, 
both had wives or brides, and each one's wife or bride 
was in his own person before there was any development 
of either ; and the first Adam's wife was taken out of 
his side, and given to him for a help-meet, (Gen. ii. 18,) 
and Adam lived with her, and no other ; and, in like 
manner, the wife or bride of Jesus Christ was chosen in 
him before the world began, and was given to him for 
a spiritual help-meet, and he lives with her, and no 
other ; and in time is developed by God sending forth 
the Spirit of His love into their hearts, crying, "Abba, 
Father."— Gal. iv. 6. "All that the Father giveth me 
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no 
wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do 
mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me ; and 
this is the Father's will which sent me, that of all which 
He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise 
it up again at the last day." — John vi. 37, 38, 39. 

The above Scriptures, with many other passages, de- 
scribe the wife or bride of Jesus Christ; and he lives in the 



A CONTROVERSY. 81 

hearts of those that the Father gave him ; and they are 
his wife, or bride ; and he does not live or abide, in a 
spiritual sense, with any other ; and he dare not live or 
abide with any other, spiritually, no matter how much 
he may will to do so with his fleshly will or Adamic 
nature ; for he came down from heaven, not to do his 
own will (as quoted above), but the will of the Father 
that sent him. Jesus, no doubt, had the same will that 
you and I have, sin excepted, and would have saved the 
whole race of man if it had been the will of the Father ; 
just as you and I would do ; but he came not to do this, 
but to do the will of the Father ; and said that of him- 
self he could do nothing. If the whole human family 
had been given to Jesus for a bride, and had been chosen 
in him before the foundation of the world, it stands as a 
certainty that the Universalists are correct ; for, as 
quoted above, of all that the Father has given him he 
shall lose nothing. He certainly did die for the sins of 
the whole human family, in a temporal and moral sense, 
but especially did he die for the believer. (I Tim. iv. 10.) 
" Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect, 
for they are not all Israel which are of Israel ; neither 
because they are the seed of Abraham are they all chil- 
dren; but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, 
they which are the children of the flesh, these are not 
the children of God ; but the children of the promise are 
counted for the seed." — Eom. ix. 6, 7, 8. This is what 
our friend Eed calls Daniel Parker's two- seed doctrine ; 
for which we pity his obtuse spiritual vision ; when 



82 A CONTROVERSY. 

God has emphatically called special attention to the dif- 
ference in the two seeds. Again: "For the children 
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, 
that the purpose of God, according to election, might 
stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it' was said 
unto her (Rebecca), The elder shall serve the younger ; as 
it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. " — 
Rom. ix. 11, 12, 13. What stronger language could 
Paul have used in showing the eternal purpose and 
foreknowledge of God ? Again: " So then, it is not of 
him that wiileth, nor of him that runneth, but of God 
that showeth mercy. For the Scripture saith unto 
Pharaoh : Even for this same purpose have I raised thee 
up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my 
name might be declared throughout all the earth. There- 
fore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and 
whom He will He hardeneth." — Rom. ix. 16, 17, 18. 

We will in conclusion illustrate our position with the 
allegory of the potter's clay, and make ourself so legible 
that every sane man who is not a religious fanatic or in- 
fidel will be compelled to understand us. " Hath not the 
potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make 
one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?" — 
Rom. ix. 21. God is the potter, and Adam and Eve the 
clay, and they and their posterity the vessels. Had 
Adam and Eve multiplied before the transgression their 
children would have been good, as they were good. But 
they violated the command of God, and the whole lump 
of clay was leavened with the leaven of sin ; hence they 



A CONTROVERSY. 83 

and their natural posterity are sinners, the children par- 
taking of the nature of their progenitors. All their pos- 
terity being sinners by nature, they naturally imbibe the 
spirit of Antichrist, or self emulation, as soon as they 
arrive by age and reason to the years of moral accounta- 
bility. And the vessels of mercy remain in this condition 
until a stronger man, the spirit of grace, takes possession 
of the vessel, (Luke xi. 21, 22,) and holds the house or ves- 
sel, at the expense of a heavy suit, for supremacy with the 
spirit of Antichrist, its former occupant, (Rom. vii. 22, 
23 : ) while "the vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction," 
(Eom. ix. 22,) are not made susceptible to the reception 
of the spirit of grace, but are made and fitted to destruc- 
tion ; and the vessels of mercy prepared by the Potter 
(God) for glory, (Eom. ix. 23,) but occupied for a time 
by the spirit of Antichrist, are made susceptible to the 
reception of the spirit of grace, and are saved in the res- 
urrection because of their contents ; and the vessels of 
wrath are lost, owing to their contents. It is the inter- 
nal and not the external qualifications that make the 
man, as taught in Masonry. So it is with the vessels of 
wrath and the vessels of mercy — they are destroyed or 
saved because of their contents, and not because of any 
fleshly difference. The vessels of wrath are not injured 
by God bestowing His special favors upon the vessels of 
His choice, for He surely has a legal right to do as He 
will with His own. And He gives to the vessels of wrath 
equal moral, legal and social rights with the vessels of 
mercy. 



84 A CONTROVERSY. 

If this be " two-seedism " and " fatalism/' as asserted 
by Mr. Ked and his arminian cohorts, Paul and all the 
Apostles were " two-seeders " and "fatalists ;" and they 
were not at fault, for Jesus taught it to them, and the 
Father taught it to Jesus ; and you dare not reply against 
God. (Eom. ix. 20.) All sane men who are not religious 
fanatics know that the theory of man's spiritual free 
agency is a popular farce. 

If God did not know from the beginning who would 
be saved, and who would be lost, for heaven's sake tell 
us what He did know, and what He did not know, and 
where His knowledge commenced, and where it ended. 
And if He foreknew all things, can all the powers of 
earth, hell and heaven prevent a thing from happening 
that He knew would take place? or make something 
come to pass that He did not foreknow ? For advocating 
the above doctrine, Mr. Eed accuses us of ingeniously 
covering up a deformed child, and calls it Daniel Par- 
ker's two-seed doctrine, when it is in fact Bible two-seed 
doctrine. 

We with shame reproach ourself for indulging too 
freely with our friends in the sin of levity, but would 
much prefer to indulge in the sin of irony, which Mr. 
Eed is pleased to call gas, than to pervert the word of 
God for the sake of money and popularity, and then be- 
come ashamed of our true name, " hireling," and at- 
tempt to steal the name, Primitive Baptist, to cover our 
shame. 



A CONTROVERSY. 85 

Note. — We here enclose in parenthesis a portion of our article, that 
the modesty of our friend, R. T. Milner, editor of the Henderson Times, 
refused to publish, believing that it might be detrimental to the inter- 
ests of his very popular paper. He further believed that it would injure 
us professionally, for which we extend thanks and commendations . 

S. M. C. 

(We would not so much blame our friend Eed for act- 
ing "hireling," and selling his religion to the people, if 
he was dealing in a genuine article ; but it is spurious, 
and therefore demoralizing ; and it is represented in the 
Scriptures as being the Wine of the old mother of har- 
lots ; and at his revival meetings we have seen him and 
his dupes get drunker upon it than we ever saw an Old 
Baptist get upon mean whiskey at a Georgia corn- 
shucking. 

All the so-called Christian institutions that were ever 
instituted by man, and not begotten of Jesus Christ nor 
recorded in the Scriptures of divine truth, are religious 
bastards, and are akin by affinity and spiritual consan- 
guinity to the daughters of the old mother of harlots, 
(false churches ) and are not legitimate Christian chil- 
dren, having been begotten of the spirit. of Antichrist 
and born of the daughters of the old harlot, false 
churches. And when false churches eat, drink, sleep, 
and commit religious fornication together, they are sure 
to beget children of their own likeness, such as mission- 
ary boards, executive committees, theological schools, 
Sunday schools, to set their children's teeth on edge. 



86 A CONTROVERSY. 

" The fathers have eaten bout grapes, and the children's 
teeth are set on edge." — Ezekiel xviii. 2. 

Prayer schools, (known as young men's prayer meet- 
ings, to teach then young converts how to pray eloquent- 
ly, as though the Lord was not able to dictate to them 
how and what to pray for.) Temperance societies, (un- 
furling their temperance banners and parading through 
the streets of villages, towns and cities, making a great 
display ; boasting of the marvelous works that they are 
doing for the Lord, in helping Him to convert and save 
the people : when, indeed, they are forcing then* weak 
minded inebriates (who care nothing for their oaths nor 
honor) behind the screens and into then closets (to escape 
detection) to perjure themselves, by violating their 
pledges. Many other so-called religious societies and 
contribution schemes might be cited, such as missionary 
hen's, etc., but we desist : all of which is a violation of 
the pattern of Christ, and has been instituted by the in- 
genious soft-handed gentry, known as the clergy, who 
attain to arrogance and high living by holding out their 
soft hands, and lisping with their sweet and cunningly 
devised articulations, that "We must have an assess- 
ment, brethren and friends, and we do hope that there 
is not one in the congregation that will be so uncouth 
as to refuse to contribute to the treasury of the Lord.'' 
Many other similar expressions and propositions are 
made, which are calculated to embarrass those who are 
not willing to contribute to the missions of Antichrist. 
The poor old woman that is said in the Scriptures to 



A CONTROVERSY. 87 

have given a penny, is often alluded to, until the poor, 
silly old women of the community are induced to rob 
the inmates of their families, of socks, chickens, eggs, 
butter, etc., to procure money to secure the arrogance 
and happiness of this soft-handed gentry, who have with 
their cunningly devised stratagem induced them to be- 
lieve that if they did not give to those noble soul-saving 
machines, thousands of the heathen would die and go to 
hell for want of the gospel, and that they themselves 
stood a fair chance to apostatize and be finally lost for 
neglect of duty. We have many times seen several of 
the daughters (false churches) unite in what they call a 
union meeting, and continue for days. Such meetings 
are generally the mother of much religious offspring ; 
and when the little ones begin to usher into existence, 
they and their progenitors all get drunk upon the wine 
of the fornication of their old mother (Rev. xvii.), and 
when drunk, they throw much dust into the air, and cry 
out, as it were, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." — 
Acts xix. 28.) 

In trying to follow the religious perambulations of Mr. 
Red, we are reminded of how difficult it is to track a 
goat, to ascertain which way he is going, both ends of 
his feet being the same size. Mr. Red has it wonderfully 
mixed ; he first has it grace before works, and then has 
it works before grace ; you can and you can't, you shall 
and you shan't ; both ends of his religious feet being the 
same size. 



S6 A CONTROVERSY. 

' • The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's 
teeth are set on edge.'' — Ezekiel xviii '2. 

Prayer schools, (known as young men's prayer meet- 
ings, to teach then young converts how to pray eloquent- 
ly, as though the Lord was not able to dictate to them 
how and what to pray for.) Temperance societies, (un- 
furling their temperance banners and parading through 
the streets of villages, towns and cities, making a great 
display : boasting of the marvelous works that they are 
doing for the Lord, in helping Him to convert and save 
the people : when, indeed, they are forcing then weak 
minded inebriates (who care nothing for their oaths nor 
honor) behind the screens and into then closets (to escape 
detection) to perjure themselves, by violating their 
pledges. Many other so-called religious societies and 
contribution schemes might be cited, such as missionary 
hen's, etc., but we desist : all of which is a violation of 
the pattern of Christ, and has been instituted by the in- 
genious soft -handed gentry, known as the clergy, who 
attain to arrogance and high living by holding out their 
soft hands, and lisping with their sweet and cunningly 
devised articulations, that "We must have an assess- 
ment, brethren and friends, and we do hope that there 
is not one in the congregation that will be so uncouth 
as to refuse to contribute to the treasury of the Lord/' 
Many other similar expressions and propositions are 
made, which are calculated to embarrass those who are 
not willing to contribute to the missions of Antichrist. 
The poor old woman that is said in the Scriptures to 



A CONTROVERSY. 87 

have given a penny, is often alluded to, until the poor, 
silly old women of the community are induced to rob 
the inmates of their families, of socks, chickens, eggs, 
butter, etc., to procure money to secure the arrogance 
and happiness of this soft-handed gentry, who have with 
their cunningly devised stratagem induced them to be- 
lieve that if they did not give to those noble soul-saving 
machines, thousands of the heathen would die and go to 
hell for want of the gospel, and that they themselves 
stood a fair chance to apostatize and be finally lost for 
neglect of duty. We have many times seen several of 
the daughters (false churches) unite in what they call a 
union meeting, and continue for days. Such meetings 
are generally the mother of much religious offspring ; 
and when the little ones begin to usher into existence, 
they and their progenitors all get drunk upon the wine 
of the fornication of their old mother (Eev. xvii.), and 
when drunk, they throw much dust into the air, and cry 
out, as it were, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." — 
Acts xix. 28.) 

In trying to follow the religious perambulations of Mr. 
Red, we are reminded of how difficult it is to track a 
goat, to ascertain which way he is going, both ends of 
his feet being the same size. Mr. Eed has it wonderfully 
mixed ; he first has it grace before works, and then has 
it works before grace ; you can and you can't, you shall 
and you shan't ; both ends of his religious feet being the 
same size. 



88 A CONTROVERSY. 

A few of our good natured friends think our language 
a little harsh ; but an old homespun proverb is, to " fight 
the devil with fire," and we feel it to be our duty to re- 
proach the devil when he attempts to slander the word 
of God or the church of Christ, even at the sacrifice of 
friends.— Mat. xix. 29 ; Mark x. 29, 30. 

Mr. Eed is correct in some of his historical quotations 
from Elder Trott and Dr. Watson, but, as usual, has 
woefully misconstrued them. The Old Baptists did not 
secede from the apostolic mode of missions, nor did they 
secede from the so-called missionaries, because they 
themselves were not missionaries ; but because the so- 
called modern missionaries had left the old landmarks, 
and were running after new gods and new patents. The 
Old Baptists being in the minority at many places, were 
compelled to set up for themselves, to get back to the 
apostolic mode of missionaries. According to Mr. Bed's 
purity of reasoning, the majority is theologically correct, 
regardless of corruption. 

The Old Baptists, in order to be distinguished from 
this body of corruption, took the name of Primitive Bap- 
tists, and the modern so-called missionaries called them- 
selves Missionaries. But prior to the split, they r were 
not known as Old Baptists, nor Missionary Baptists, but 
Baptists. 

Mr. Red is in principle to-day in open communion with 
all the daughters of the old harlot, in his missionary 
boards, executive committees, theological schools, etc., 
the Sabbath school being the fairest and the most lovely 



A CONTROVERSY. 89 

of all the daughters of the old harlot, and at whose 
shrine the old woman and her other daughters, with 
arrogance and exultation gracefully bow, but without 
any " Thus saith the Lord," and all that Mr. Eed differs 
from them in is in name. While the Old Baptists are 
strictly in accord with the apostolic Missionaries, and 
have a " Thus saith the Lord " for all they do in a church 
capacity, without any of Mr. Bed's new patents. 

Again, if Mr. Eed is correct in his reasonings, the 
ancient Christians who rebelled against Catholicism, and 
had to seek caves, dens, and the wilderness for refuge, 
were certainly wrong, theologically, they being a small 
faction. Again, when Elder Eoger Williams rebelled 
against the law church that was wont to be established 
in the original colonies, and who was exiled for his re- 
ligious opinions to the island of Ehode Island, and who 
afterwards constituted the first Baptist church that was 
ever organized upon American soil, was surely wrong, 
according to Mr. Bed's system of reasoning. 

And to the Old Baptists, the people of this great com- 
monwealth are much indebted to-day for the liberties 
they now enjoy ; and why ? Because the first Washing- 
ton Cabinet drafted the Constitution of the United States 
from the Constitution of the first Baptist church of Amer- 
ica, drawn up by Elder Eoger Williams, it being strictly 
democratic. For want of space we cannot reply to all of 
Mr. Bed's hallucinations and accusations against his so- 
called Anti-missionary Baptists; but we are ready to 
acquiesce in his historical quotations in the last part of 



90 A CONTROVERSY. 

his essay, and challenge hirn to show in any part of his 
quotations where the original Baptists ever put them- 
selves up to the highest bidder to go and preach the gos- 
pel, or where they accepted a stipulated salary for minis- 
terial services ; but they were always content with the 
contributions that the laity and friends bestowed upon 
them, after apostolic usages ; just as the Old Baptists do 
to-day (we do not mean his kind ;) and when they see 
the necessity of sending one of their ministers on a mis- 
sionary tour, the money is promptly raised to bear the 
probable expenses, without any great ado, such as mis- 
sionary hens, whose eggs are to be preserved, hatched 
and sold, for the spread of the gospel ; and other mis- 
sionary menageries, such as admission fee festivals, Sun- 
day school celebration, bogus auctions at Christmas trees 
in their churches, etc., all of which is a reproach upon 
the church of Christ, and has been instituted by Mr. 
Eed's kind of missionaries. 

With many thanks to the editor of the Henderson 
Times for his courtesy in giving space to our articles, I 
am. Very respectfully, 

M. CABLTON. 



paet in. 



DIAGRAM 



OF THE 



Christian and Anti-Christian Churches. 



Illustrated by a Supposed Interview Between the 
Armenian's All- Wise and Omnipotent God of 
the Universe, and Mr. Eed and his Armenian 
Cohorts. 



Having been denied the privilege of redeeming a 
promise through the medium of the Henderson Times, 
of furnishing our readers a diagram of the Christian and 
Anti-Christian churches, we here insert a few of the 
characteristic elements of the churches under considera- 
tion, drawing such characteristic lines of discrimination, 
that the casual observer will be compelled to see the dis- 
crepancy. And in drawing our diagram, we may hold 
up the fallacy of Mr. Eed, and expose him to "public 
gaze," as he proposed to expose our article. And sup- 
pose that we bring a blush to the tinted cheek of the 
smiling countenance of our friend Eed, and cause "his 



92 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Irish blood" to become exasperated; "but he knows us 

so well.'- " and knows that there is a certain amount of 
gas that we are compelled to get sliet of, or explode," that 
we feel safe in presuming upon his charity, and feel that 
he will throw the veil of charity over our foibles, and do 
us no harm ; for we fully intend to present him with a 
copy of our work, should we succeed in getting our book 
before the public. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Ae^itnta^'s God. — Mr. Eed & Co. : I am glad to meet you 
thus alone, that we may freely, but privately and socially, 
discuss the great errors and truths of the Bible. You are 
surely aware of my intelhgence, and that I have made you 
rational, intelligent and accountable beings, and capable 
of securing eternal salvation, if you will only accept the 
terms of salvation, which are entirely optional with all 
mankind. You know that as a rational God, I could not 
have had it otherwise, and been a just God. You 
further know that you must act in such a way as to 
merit the confidence and esteem of your superiors before 
you can expect to obtain favors from them. It is just so 
with me. I would feel very ungrateful to my cause to 
accept sinners into glory, and bestow special favors upon 
them who had never done anything to promote my 
Spiritual Kingdom : and reject others for some trivial 
offense, who had done many good works for the promo- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 93 

tion of my cause. Such a thing would be sacrilege, and 
is not in accordance with my character. 

Bed cc Co. — Most Holy Father, we are so thankful 
that you have condescended to interview us. and confirm 
the doctrine that we have so long cherished, and believed 
with all our hearts ; although there are many Scriptures 
that conflict with this theory, and Scriptures that make 
you the author of sin. and that you save souls regardless 
of merit, and that you made the devil, etc.. and we have 
made many efforts to believe it. because it was in the 
Bible : but since we have met face to face, we see that 
there is something wrong about it, and we much desire 
that you proceed further to disabuse our minds. 

Aemtvia^'s God. — I am aware that Moses, Isaiah. St. 
John, Paul, and John in Eevelation. and these old Pre- 
destinarian Baptists of the present day. all hold out this 
idea, beside many others of the old Prophets and Apos- 
tles : but I tell you. my friends, they are wrong. I have 
been misrepresented and slandered by them. Even my 
own Son. Jesus Christ, has written and had his so-called 
inspired writers to hand down from generation to gener- 
ation a system of fatalism and decrees unauthorized by 
me. that would seemingly make me the author of evil, 
as well as the author of good ; which you know would 
be inconsistent. The very idea is preposterous, to sup- 
pose that I would create an evil spirit, known as the 
devil, to antagonize my spirit of love and mercy, and 
take the chances against this spirit of evil, that is ever 
ready to beguile souls and send them to everlasting per- 



94 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

dition. I am not only accused of creating evil, but of 
putting it upon an equality with my spirit of love and 
mercy, which would give it the same chance to destroy 
souls that my Holy Spirit has to save them. Now every 
one of my intelligent creatures knows that I would not 
have made such a spirit as this, and put it in direct op- 
position to my love and mercy ; because you know that 
I want the whole human family saved ; and I would not 
be a just God if I did not want them all saved. And 
then, to accuse me of creating a spirit that would, be- 
yond a doubt, destroy a part of the souls that I desire so 
much to save ! My friends, such an idea is too absurd 
to be entertained for a moment, and is an accusation 
upon my wisdom in the creation, to even suppose that I 
would have made such a spirit. Therefore you must 
certainly know that this evil spirit, or the devil, is as old 
as I am, and equally self -existing, and therefore possesses 
creative powers, and disregards me and my cause. 
And when my earthly son, Adam, apostatized, and in 
him all of his posterity were deluged in the same cate- 
gory of sin, giving me and my cause away to Satan, 
since which time it has been one of my greatest efforts, 
together with all the missionaries that I could induce to 
help me, to get even a few to depart from this evil one 
and be saved ; notwithstanding the fact that I want 
them saved so bad. If I had only known that Adam was 
so fickle and unstable, and that he was going to give me 
away as he did, I would not have made him a free agent 
*as I did, and given him the law that I did ; but 1 verily 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 95 

thought that Adam would not betray the confidence that 
I reposed in him, when I gave him the law and left him 
in the garden. But Adam and I are to some extent ex- 
cusable ; neither of us having any experience at the 
time as to the stratagem of the devil. And I Vili ven- 
ture the assertion that this evil spirit, the devil, was 
lying in wait, watching the opportunity of my absence 
to do his devilish work. I will venture another asser- 
tion : that if Adam and I could have the thing over 
again, we would act very differently ; for we have long 
since seen our folly. Adam's whole posterity could have 
now been happy together through all the ages of the 
world, had it not been for this blunder. 

You will please pardon me for quoting to you a few of 
the accusations and assertions of those so-called inspired 
Prophets and Apostles, that these old fogy Predestin- 
arian Baptists are so tenaciously contending for: "I 
form the light and create darkness ; I make peace and 
create evil : I the Lord do all these things." — Is. xlv. T. 
Now, my friends, you know that old Isaiah was mis- 
taken about this matter. How could I be the just God 
that I propose to be and be the author of evil, or the 
devil, that is trying to destroy all the souls of men, that 
I so much desire to save ? These Old Baptists are not so 
much to blame, after all ; for they fully believe that old 
Isaiah was commanded to write what he did, and that I 
am its author. 

I am very sorry that the old man did not discover his 
mistake before it was too late. The only chance that I 



96 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

see now to stop this old fogy influence, (for it is rapidly 
on the increase, although I have had it proclaimed 
through the medium of my missionaries that as soon as 
a few more of these old fogies, such as Beebe, Johnson, 
and othens, died, this element would dwindle into insig- 
nificance ; but in this I now see that I was mistaken) is 
to put more missionaries in the field, increase our treas- 
ury, and re-translate the Bible every few years, until we 
can by degrees leave out these unauthorized paragraphs, 
in such a way that it will escape the detection of these 
illiterate old fogies ; for you may be sure that I regret 
the mistakes that many of those old writers made, as 
well as the errors of the translators of King James. 

Again, " All things were made by Him, [God] 
and without Him was not anything made that was 
made." — John i. 3. You can here see that there is 
another mistake made, even in the lifetime of my Son 
Jesus Christ ; and the strange part of it is, that he did 
not correct the error, and let the people know that I was 
not the author of evil. But instead thereof, he actually 
encourages them in this strange babbling. Again, one 
Paul, who was a learned man, and I suppose that he 
thought himself to be very smart, turned to be Old Bap- 
tist and apostle, and got to be very eloquent, and notor- 
ious among the old fogies. And in his perverted letter 
to the Colossians, he gets very eloquent, and says, "For 
by Him [God] were all things created that are in heaven, 
and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they 
be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers : 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 97 

all things were created by Him and for Him ; and He is 
before all things, and by Him all things consist." — Col. 
i. 16, 17. 

Now, my friends, this man Paul claims to have writ- 
ten from inspiration, and he has left nothing that the 
imagination can think of that he does not claim me to be 
the author of. And strange as it may appear to your 
intelligences, near the latter part of the quotation, he 
says that I made it for myself. And evil is certainly 
one of the things that " consist," and is the dominion 
of the devil. 

Now, my friends, in the name of common sense, rea- 
son, and everything that is sacred, what use could I have 
had for this evil, or devil ? am I to be accused by this 
Paul of creating an element of sin, to perplex and annoy me 
from generation to generation, that is ever ready to thwart 
my programme of saving souls ? And many times, in 
spite of all that I and my missionaries can do, the devil 
robs us of our loved ones, and casts them into outer dark- 
ness ; when you know, from the very nature of things, 
that I desire the salvation of all men. And then to be 
accused by this Paul and these Old Baptists of making 
the adversary of souls for myself! My friends, it is an 
insult to my character, and I wish you missionaries to 
redouble your energies, and I will help you all I can to 
evangelize the world, and we will continue to get out our 
New Translations every few years, until we wipe out the 
memory of the perversions of Paul and these Old Baptists, 
and then we can save the people in spite of Satan. 



98 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Again, in the book of Revelation, the writer, John, gets 
very humble, and accuses me. And these Old Baptists, 
as usual, are ready to swallow every word of it. He 
says : " Thou art worthy, Lord, to receive glory, and 
honor, and power ; for thou hast created all things, and 
for thy pleasure they are and were created." — Rev. iv. 11. 
Can you imagine, my friends, what pleasure I could pos- 
sibly have in the devil ? For that wicked spirit is surely 
one of the all things ; yet I am accused by John of mak- 
ing him for my pleasure. It seems that those old Pro- 
phets and Apostles, and these Old Baptists, are delighted 
in their accusations against me and my missionaries. 
And my advice to you, my friends, is to be patient, yet 
zealous, and I will be with you in your efforts, and before 
another century rolls around we will so mystify the pres- 
ent translation of King James, with our new editions, 
that we will annihilate this old f ogyism from the face of 
the earth. For old Beebe and Johnson are now dead, 
and many others of the old veterans will soon die, and 
in the meanwhile we will try to kill out their influence 
before new ones grow up to take their places. 

One other thing I wish to call your attention to before 
we leave this part of the subject. I am not only accused 
by those old writers, of making or creating these wicked 
things for my own pleasure and glory, but these Old Bap- 
tists are in perfect harmony with them. They say that 
I was compelled to make or create evil, in order to have 
good : and that I was compelled to have a hell, in order 
to have a heaven : and that I was obliged to have bad 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 99 

men, in order to have good men ; and that devils were a 
necessity, in order to have saints ; and that I could not 
have affirmatives, without having negatives ; and that I 
could not have one without the other ; and that I was 
compelled to make both, in order to make a display of 
my power, wisdom, goodness and mercy, by contrasting 
the one with the other. And I tell you, my friends, they 
make a plausible argument of this thing, and it is going 
to be a difficult task for us to refute this argument ; and 
the only way that we can sustain our theory, is to posi- 
tively deny the authorship of these negatives, and con- 
tend that we are only the author of the good ; that we 
did not make the devil, and that the devil is the author 
of the bad ; and that the devil is self -existing, and that 
he possesses creative powers. I know that this makes 
the devil my equal, but I had rather acknowledge that 
he is my equal, than to be accused of creating these 
wicked things. 

Red & Co. — Our God, we are wonderfully pleased with 
thee, and desire to render praise and adoration to thee for- 
ever, for the great favor that thou hast just bestowed upon 
us, in that of correcting those mysterious errors that have 
been such an enigma through all ages, which the wisest 
and most philosophical minds could not comprehend and 
reconcile the inconsistency. But we are now satisfied that 
the doctrine that we and our spiritual ancestors have so 
long cherished and contended for is true, as we have now 
heard it from thine own mouth ; otherwise we might 
have remained in doubt, thinking that possibly those old 



100 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

writers and these Old Baptists might be correct. For we 
will tell you of a truth, that the weakest of these Old 
Baptist ministers, when attacked by our ablest divines 
and religious philosophers, will quote a few passages 
from old Paul, and others of his persuasion, and for the 
life of us we cannot apply English literature to it in such 
a way as to make it mean anything, only what they say 
it does ; and they actually put our wisest men to flight, 
and bring reproach upon us, notwithstanding the incon- 
sistency of the whole of their theory. These Old Baptists 
are actually vain enough to claim that we are spiritually 
blind, and that we have eyes and see not, that we have 
ears and hear not, and that we have a heart and cannot 
understand ; and they are egotistic over it, and claim 
that they have the Scriptures to sustain them in their 
assertions, and say that this is the reason why we do not 
understand the Scriptures as they do. They further say 
that you have made special appointments from all etern- 
ity, and that at your own appointed time, and in your 
own appointed way, you will throughout eternity com 
municate this spiritual wisdom to these favored ones, 
and withhold these special favors from others, who are 
just as good by nature as these favored ones, and in many 
instances far better by practice. Such an inconsistency 
is very ridiculous to our minds. For it does seem that 
these special favors should be bestowed upon those who 
were trying to do the Master's will, and that justice de- 
mands this, and that you as a just God would be under ob- 
ligations to the ones that were doing most for your cause. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 101 

They have gotten up another monstrous inconsistency, 
and claim that you made a special covenant with your 
Son Jesus Christ, several thousand years before he was 
born, and that you gave him a definite number of souls, 
whose names were all enrolled or recorded in Jesus 
Christ before the world began, and that Jesus Christ re- 
presents the Lamb's Book of life, and that it would be a 
violation of contract for you to grant these special fav- 
ors to any others except those that you specially coven- 
anted with your Son Jesus to give him ; but that you be- 
stowed common favors upon all alike. Now, sir, these 
Old Baptists can with apparent ease turn to these Script- 
ures that they say sustain their theory, and with all of 
our efforts we have failed to refute their arguments, and 
we much desire your assistance in helping us to correct 
these errors, for we feel that we are surely correct in our 
theory. 

Armenian's God. — I certainly feel under obligations to 
assist you all that I can in this dilemma. Had I been a 
little more careful in the beginning, and given this mat- 
ter my special attention, as I should have done, many of 
these so-called Scriptures would have read very dif- 
ferent. 

Soon after the creation, when Adam committed the 
blunder of disobeying my command, entailing sin upon 
his whole posterity, I at once saw from the character of 
Satan, with his allurements, that he would entice with 
cunningly devised stratagem the last one of the promised 
posterity of Adam, to leave me and my cause, and follow 



102 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

him into endless perdition. And to prevent the entire 
loss of my loved ones, (for I made them for my own 
glory) I selected a few of those ancient men who hap- 
pened to be prudent enough to believe me as I thought, 
and 1 induced them with special promises to espouse my 
cause and assist me in trying to reclaim the others, who 
were so tenaciously cemented to Satan and to the love of 
his cause, that I could do nothing with them, without 
help ; and even then we did not succeed as I had ex- 
pected. I then decided upon another plan, which I verily 
thought would be a success. And I promised those pru- 
dent men that I would beget a son by the Virgin Mary, 
and that through the medium of prophecy I would 
promise the people the help of a Savior in the person of 
my Son Jesus Christ, who should be a mediator between 
them and the sin of their federal head, Adam, that had 
been entailed upon them ; and that this Savior should 
suffer and die to atone for the sins of the whole human 
family, without any distinctions or specialties, so that all 
could have an equal chance to be saved from endless 
perdition, if they would. I therefore appointed some 
prophets, and continued to appoint prophets from gener- 
ation to generation, until the appointed time for the 
coming of my Son Jesus Christ, and instructed them as 
precise as I could how and what to prophesy for ; and in 
many instances they carried out the mandates of my 
orders ; but in other instances they have misinterpreted 
my meaning, and have prophesied for a system of special 
favors to a select few throughout all eternity, when I 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 103 

fully intended that the death of my Son, Jesus Christ, 
should atone for the sins of the whole human family, 
without any distinctions, so that the way might be made 
possible for me to extract my loved ones from the grasp 
of Satan, and save them as I first intended. But I sup- 
pose that those old prophets thought, from the fact of 
special appointments being made to them to assist me in 
this great work, which had up to this time baffled my skill, 
that I was going to keep up special favors to a few select 
persons through all eternity, and therefore wrote it this 
way, by failing to understand me ; for I fully intended 
to save the whole human family through the mediation 
and death of my Son. But in this I was again disap- 
pointed by not giving my -special attention to the head 
notes of those old prophets ; for instead of writing a 
special promise to all men through the atonement of 
Jesus Christ, as I had instructed them, they made a 
special promise to a few, as I did when I selected them 
to prophesy and assist me. Having been thwarted again 
in my programme, I determined that as soon as my Son 
was born, and arrived at proper age to receive instruc- 
tion, I would not let the opportunity pass to fully in- 
struct him as to my wishes. I therefore waited until the 
appointed time of his advent, and as soon as he was com- 
petent of receiving instruction I communicated to him 
my entire will, and even put my Holy Spirit in him ; and 
I supposed, with my Spirit in him, that it would be im- 
possible for him to commit an error ; and I do not believe 
that he would, had he not, perchance, got hold of those 



104 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

old manuscripts written by those old prophets. And my 
opinion is, that as soon as he read them, he at once 
imbibed the idea, and became infatuated with it, and be- 
lieved me to be its author. He very soon got himself up 
a corps of apostles, and he and his apostles preached and 
duplicated the same doctrines, as did those old prophets, 
and claimed it as an inspired message to this favored 
few ; much to my mortification and disgust. Since 
which time these old predestinarian Baptists have im- 
bibed the same doctrine, and are actually preaching and 
teaching it to-day. But I assert to you that I did not 
authorize such a doctrine to be preached ; and the only 
alternate that I now see to extinguish this theory is 
through the medium of my missionaries and our new 
editions of the Bible ; for we have been thwarted in every 
other effort that we have made. 

I now propose to quote to you a few more of these un- 
authorized paragraphs of Scripture, and show you their 
inconsistency : 

" And we know that all things work together for good 
to them that love God, to them who are the called accor- 
ding to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He 
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of 
His Son, that he might be the first born among many 
brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them 
He also called ; and whom He called, them He also justi- 
fied ; and whom He justified, them He also glorified. 
What shall we then say to these things ? If God be for 
us, who can be against us ? " — Eom. viii. 28, 32. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 105 

"For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor 
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, 
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
other creature shall be able to separate us from the love 
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. " — Eom. viii. 
38, 39. 

I would here advertise you, my friends, to notice care- 
fully the enormity of this harangue, written by this 
learned man, Paul, who claims to have been moved by 
the spirit of inspiration to write to the churches at Borne 
and other places. And in all of his messages of love to 
the churches he has failed to make a good promise to 
any except these favored ones, who, he says, I foreknew, 
called, predestinated, elected, justified, glorified, etc. 
And in the last part of the quotation he says that they 
cannot be separated from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Now, my friends, this is a powerful accusation against 
me. Do you suppose that I would have created a set of 
human beings, and had their posterity in embryo, and 
selected out of them, according to the theory of fore- 
knowledge, a certain few to be saved with an everlasting 
salvation, and with the same foreknowledge know that 
the others would be lost in endless perdition ? Yet this 
man, Paul, actually teaches this doctrine in all of his letters 
to his churches. And these Old Baptists of the present 
day positively feast upon it and agree with Paul in ridi- 
culing the doctrine of my missionaries, and say with 
Paul, "For I bear them record that they have a zeal of 



106 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW 

God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being 
ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to 
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted 
themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is 
the end of the law [works] for righteousness to every- 
one that believeth. " — Eom. x. 2, 4. 

I appeal to your intelligences, and propound to you a 
few interrogations, by way of deriding this old fogy idea 
of old Paul, and these Old Baptists. Suppose that you 
are the father of one dozen children whose mother is 
your legitimate wife. Could you possibly know any dif- 
ference in them according to parental affection ? Could 
you disinherit either of them in the division of your 
estate, on the flimsy pretext of election ? Or could you 
presume to punish one, two, or half of them, with the 
rod, the balance of their natural lives, who had by 
nature become refractory or wayward in their obedience 
to your mandates ? Of course you will all answer nega- 
tively. Yet old Paul and these Old Baptists indirectly 
say that the creature, man, is more merciful than his 
Creator, and accuse me of doing things that are within 
the province or prerogative of my spiritual dealings with 
my creatures, that they themselves would not presume 
to do, as a matter of conscience. 

O ! the heights and depths of the ignorance of these old 
fogies, and how to relieve the country of their pestifer- 
ous dogmas is something that I cannot fathom, while the 
present translation is recognized. For when my mission- 
aries attempt to overpower them with arguments, and 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. lOf 

appeal to common sense, and natural reason, they at once 
say that my missionaries cannot see nor understand, "Be- 
cause the carnal mind is enmity against God ; for it is 
not subject to the law of G-od, neither indeed can be. So 
then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God." — 
Rom. viii. 7, 8. " But the natural man receivethnot the 
things of the Spirit of God ; for they are f oolishness unto 
him : neither can he know them, because they are spirit- 
ually discerned." — I Cor. ii. 14. 

You can readily see from this, that old Paul and these 
Old Baptists have an exalted opinion of their supernat- 
ural intellect in spiritual things over my missionaries. 
And when my missionaries call in question their vanity, 
they at once reject self, and give to me all the glory, 
honor, praise and power, and that of themselves they are 
nothing but poor, sin-polluted sinners, deserving the fiery 
indignation of my wrath, if I had meted out justice, in- 
stead of mercy to them. They then appeal to the writ- 
ings of Paul and his cohorts, and prove that these special 
favors of my grace or favor were bestowed upon them 
without merit, and that their spiritual minds were thus 
illuminated by the light of my favor or grace shining in- 
to their dark and benighted hearts, giving them acute- 
ness of spiritual vision over the capacity of my mission- 
aries in spiritual things, and therefore give me all the 
glory ; and claim none for themselves. 

And with those old writers, who are of the same per- 
suasion of these Old Baptists, and who are ever ready to 
come to the rescue of these Old Baptists with their ab- 



108 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

stract paragraphs of election, predestination, and final 
perseverance, they soon put my missionaries to flight, 
notwithstanding the intelligence and justice of our cause. 

Only listen to them for a few moments, and see how 
they rivet their doctrine upon you, and leave you no get- 
ting out place, with their version of the present transla- 
tion, although we know it to be mere fiction : "For by 
grace are ye saved, through faith ; and that not of your- 
selves ; it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any 
man should boast. For we are His workmanship, creat- 
ed in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath 
before ordained that we should walk in them." — Eph. 
ii. 8, 9, 10. 

" And if by grace, then it is no more of works ; other- 
wise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then 
it is no more grace ; otherwise work is no more work. 
What then! Israel hath not obtained that which he 
seeketh for ; but the election hath obtained it, and the 
rest were blinded (according as it is written, God hath 
given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should 
not see, and ears that they should not hear,) unto this 
day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, 
and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompense un- 
to them : let their eyes be darkened, that they may not 
see, and bow down their back always. "—Rom. xi. 6, 11. 

Do you suppose that old Paul thought that he was 
writing from inspiration when he wrote these paragraphs? 
Or do you not think that he did it out of curiosity, to be 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 109 

odd, and to make a display of what he was pleased to call 
divine or spiritual inspiration ? 

Be this as it may, these Old Baptists chuckle, and exult 
over these Scriptures, and seem to delight in their oddity, 
which is in perfect keeping with those old writers, and 
they are so afraid of works, fearing that their salvation 
will not be reckoned of grace, that they actually refuse 
to negotiate with the Christian institutions that have been 
instituted by the various branches of my churches ; and 
as usual, they always find Scripture that they contend 
sustains their theory. Only listen at the abstract verses 
that they produce to prove that our institutions are not 
authorized by the Bible : 

"And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come 
out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her 
sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her 
sins have reached unto heaven and God hath remembered 
her iniquities." — Eev. xviii. 4, 5. 

" Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; 
for what fellowship hath righteousness with unright- 
eousness ? and what communion hath light with dark- 
ness ? And what concord hath Christ with Belial ? or 
what part hath he that believeth with an infidel ? And 
what agreement hath the temple of God with idols ? for 
ye are the temple of the living God ; as God hath said, 
I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be 
their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come 
out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, 
and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, ' 



110 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons 
and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty . " — II Cor. vi. 
U, 18. 

These Old Baptists actually claim that our Christian 
institutions are institutions of the world, and that they 
are begotten of the spirit of Antichrist, and that they are 
more for show and display than for the service of God. 
And that God has never authorized the organization of 
but one institution, His Church, and that all other so- 
called Christian institutions and churches that participate 
in anything that is not in accord with the pattern of the 
church set up by Jesus Christ, is of the spirit of Anti- 
christ ; and that they, as followers of Christ, are com- 
manded to come out from among them, and be a separ- 
ate people, as admonished by the above quotation. And 
they are actually presumptuous enough to put the people 
upon the stool of do-nothing, to sit and wait for me to 
come and pull them to heaven by the hair of the head. 
Do you suppose that I am going to force people to heaven 
whether they wish to go or not ? Of course I want them 
to go ; but after making them free agents, I would be act- 
ing in bad faith, as though I had no confidence in their 
ability, were I to undertake to force them to accept sal- 
vation. 

Notwithstanding the plausibility of our argument, my 
Son Jesus Christ, the old prophets and apostles, and these 
Old Baptists, all teach, preach and write this doctrine of 
special favor without merit, and the eternal union of 
Christ and his bride, (the church,) regardless of good 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. Ill 

works. But all this does not make it the truth ; for 
this thing got badly tangled in the beginning, and it 
does seem that we will never get able to untangle it. 
They further teach that true and vital religion com- 
mences in the heart, and that the brain or intellect sym- 
pathizes with the heart, and that any other theory of 
religion that is conceived by the brain, from intellect 
or common sense, is brain religion, notwithstanding 
natural and moral science teach that the brain must 
conceive before the heart can be affected. But they 
are so stupid that we will never be able to beat anything 
into them that is not in the Bible. 

Bed & Co. — Our God, we have listened to thee with 
much patience and admiration, and our bowels have 
yearned within us, giving thanks and praises to thee. 
And we now feel a freedom of thought and speech, that 
we dared not to have uttered in time past ; for the whole 
bent of our spiritual convictions was in direct opposition 
to what was called by these old fogies, " The great and 
fundamental truths of the Bible." And it was so incon- 
sistent that we could not believe it, although we had to 
try to preach it, and disguise it the best we could in or- 
der to make our theory plausible, so as to please the 
people and cause them to go with us. And even then, 
with our best efforts and ablest divines, we failed to carry 
some good men with us, who actually followed these old 
fogies, because the Scriptures did not particularly specify 
our Christian institutions, as was the custom of Jesus 
Christ and his inspired writers in speaking of the church 



112 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

of Christ. As though these Christian duties could not 
be as well understood as to be so specifically expressed in 
the Bible. But these Old Baptists reject them all, be- 
cause they are not in the Bible. We are a little surprised 
at any of them ever marrying their wives or husbands, 
because they could not find their wives' or husbands' 
names recorded in the Bible as being their particular wife 
or husband, as they seem to be such sticklers for Bible 
testimony. But we are fully satisfied with your explan- 
ations, and will endeavor to carry out your mandates to 
the best of our ability, believing that the day will come, 
when we will destroy their influence and evangelize the 
world. 

You have casually mentioned our Christian institu- 
tions, and from the tenor of your language we can but 
infer that you heartily indorse them. And we would 
like for you to more fully explain to us the reasons why 
they were not put in manuscript by the inspired writers; 
for. we assure you that they are a great lever in our business 
of committing and converting souls that would otherwise 
be lost. Of course we have our opinion about it, but we 
wish to have it beyond cavil. Was it omitted intentional- 
ly, thinking that it would be understood ? Or did you for- 
get to speak of it to your Son Jesus Christ ? Or did he 
forget to command his apostles to write it ? Or did the 
apostles refuse to record our Christian institutions, be- 
cause they would come in contact or conflict with their 
preconceived opinions of special appointments, of election, 
predestination, final perseverance, eternal union, etc ? 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 113 

Armenian's God.— My friends, these are pertinent ques- 
tions, and I feel it to be obligatory upon me to fully in- 
form your minds upon this important subject. I am 
aware that these institutions are the great bulwarks in 
saving souls, for without these institutions it would be 
but a few years until Satan would almost depopulate 
heaven ; or, at least, he would deter future generations 
from embracing the great privileges of saving grace 
through the mediation of our Sunday schools and other 
Christian institutions that lead sinners to Christ. Al- 
though my Son Jesus Christ seems to have turned traitor 
to his own interest, and against my will ; but you know 
this was caused by his mind being abused in the begin- 
ning by reading those old manuscripts ; and I suppose 
that he is, to some extent, like all other human beings, 
once committed to an error, they are too proud to retract, 
although you may convince them a thousand times. He 
says, " Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, 
murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to 
me except the Father which hath sent me draw him ; 
and I will raise him up at the last day." — John vi. 
43, 44. 

These are positive declarations, powerfully implying 
that there are some that I do not draw to Christ. Paul 
says, as quoted in another place by me, " And if by grace, 
then is it no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more 
grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace ; 
otherwise work is no more work. What then ? Israel 
hath not obtained that which he seeketh for ; but the 



114 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. " — 
Eom. xi. 6, 7. 

Such ideas as these are ridiculous, my friends. Is not 
the whole human family mine by creation ? (and would 
have been mine by salvation, had Adam not given them 
to Satan, when I made him a free agent,) and do you 
suppose that I could have favorites among them and not 
impress them all alike ? No, sirs ; they are free agents, 
and they are more impressed with the cause of Satan, 
who has the supremacy over them, and I cannot help 
myself ; for you know that I would save them if I could, 
but have delegated the power to them as free agents, and 
dare not interfere without a breach of contract ; and my 
only chance to save them is by moral suasion through my 
missionaries and Christian institutions. 

The idea of Paul saying that I had blinded some so that 
they could not see spiritually if they would, is to accuse 
me of a great evil. 

I tell you that these Sunday schools have extricated 
thousands of souls from the grasp of Satan, and saved 
them from hell. And I care not for the traditional in- 
fluence of what my Son Jesus Christ and Paul may say. 
I tell you to go on with the good work, and save the 
people from perdition, and I will help you all I can. 

I am sure of one thing, and that is, that I told my Son 
Jesus Christ to have his apostles record these Christian 
institutions in the New Testament. 

But after he and his apostles became infatuated with 
this doctrine that is so detestable to you and I, and being 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 115 

sure that our institutious would conflict with their pre- 
conceived opinions of election and special appointments, 
I am sure that they declined or refused to obey my man- 
dates. But, nevertheless, I tell you they are wrong, 
and I urge it upon you as my disciples io leave nothing 
undone that will foster to the salvation of souls ; and 
your Sunday schools will commit thousands of young 
and tender minds, and when they are once committed, 
and arrive at riper years, their pride will cause them to 
stay with you, rather than be derided and scoffed at as 
turncoats. 

These Old Baptists may convince them that the 
present translation is true, and therefore their theory 
true ; yet they will stay with you because you are popu- 
lar and fashionable ; for the fancy of human pride is to 
stay on the big side ; and numbers, you know, will add 
much to our treasure and influence in getting out our 
new translations, and will keep my missionary ministers 
in neat style, so that they can wield a mighty influence. 
Although Jesus Christ and his apostles and those Old 
Baptists all set the same example, in that of wearing 
common apparel, and in making no big displays in build- 
ing costly church houses, with elegant cushioned pews, 
dazzling chandeliers, church organs that belch forth the 
sweetest melody, when surrounded by our fairest maid- 
ens and matrons, whose voices are trained to accord with 
the most delicious notes of the organ, and loud tolling 
bells to call their elegantly attired saints together ; yet 
you need not care for any of their old fogy examples, for 



116 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

they pride in having all things common ; and, as usual, 
they have Scripture to the point : "And all that believed 
were together, and had all things common." — Acts iv. 
44. But you know that this common business will not 
do with the various orders of my missionaries ; for your 
strength lies in your arrogance and popularity, and not 
in your following the examples of primitive so-called 
Christians ; and you know that if you were to presume 
to adopt these old-time examples, you would lose all your 
influence and popularity, and these Old Baptists would 
completely devastate your churches, having all these old 
fogy Scriptures on their side. Hear how they reprimand 
you: " For if there come unto your assembly a man 
with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in 
also a poor man in vile raiment, and ye have respect to 
him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, 
sit thou here in a good place, and say to the poor, stand 
thou here, or sit here under my footstool, are ye not then 
partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil 
thoughts ? 

Hearken, my beloved brethren : Hath not God chosen 
the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the 
kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him ? 
But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress 
you, and draw you before the judgment seats ? " — James 
ii. % 7. 

My friends, you know in this age of refinement and 
decency it would never do to adopt this precedent. Sup- 
pose that some poor wretch was to come to one of your 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 117 

fine city churches with vile and tattered raiment, 
and your janitor was to conduct him to one of your 
costly pews ; do you not know that it would be disgrace- 
ful, and your janitor would lose his situation ? Yet these 
Old Baptists will conduct such an one to their front seats 
and seem to regard it as a privilege. 

I hope to have your kind indulgence, my friends ; for 
I. have another one of my most grievous trials to relate 
to you. And after you are fully informed in these great 
truths, I think you will be better prepared to appreciate 
the interest that I have taken in you ; and not only this, 
but when your minds are fully edified you will then be 
the better able to assist me hereafter. 

Near the commencement of the fifteenth century, 
when my missionaries and their institutions were so 
oppressed in the Old World, and they could see no way of 
escape from the law church, and other oppressions of 
taxation, I selected one of the noblest men in the Old 
World ; I mean noble in intellect and powerful in moral 
suasion and influence ; I do not mean powerful in wealth, 
for he was poor, but susceptible of impressions for good, 
having a warm and sympathizing heart ; and I impress- 
ed him with the idea of a new world, the limits of which 
would be boundless for many centuries, for the opera- 
tions of my missionaries in helping me to save souls. 
This great and good man was Christopher Columbus, to 
whose assistance I called the Queen (Isabella), and in 
order to secure her aid beyond all peradventure I im- 
pressed her with the great wealth and resources that 



118 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

this new world would add to her province. Hence she 
rendered him all the help that was desired, in that of 
ships, commissaries, and seamen, to make the voyage 
across the great briny ocean, where I could locate the 
various orders of my missionaries, where they could en- 
joy perfect peace and harmony with each other, and 
serve me according to the dictates of their own con- 
science. Of course I arranged things for them to differ 
widely in their theories of the plan of salvation ; for you 
know, " And without controversy, great is the mystery 
of godliness." — I Tim. hi. 16. And while they controvert 
and quarrel over the nonessentials, and almost get at 
dagger's point, they all come together on the one thing 
needful, " Ye must be born again." But this I arranged, 
that they all should be right in the enjoyment of their 
own peculiar views. 

I have labored diligently to convince them of this fact, 
so that every branch of my missionary churches might 
hold open commission with each other, and work for the 
cause of the Master. But, as usual, those old writers 
and these Old Baptists all come together and widely dif- 
fer with me. Hear them: "Finally, be ye all of one 
mind, having compassion one of another: love as brethren, 
be pitiful, be courteous." — I Peter iii. 8. "I beseech 
Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same 
mind in the Lord."— Phil. iv. 2. " Finally, brethren, 
farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one 
mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall 
be with you."— II Cor. xiii. 11. "Now I beseech you, 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 119 

brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye 
all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions 
among you ; but that ye be perfectly joined together in 
the same mind and in the same judgment." — I Cor. i. 10. 
"That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify 
God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." — Eom. 
xv. 6. This sounds very different from the way that I 
have taught my missionaries, and is not the way that 
my missionaries teach ; for you know, as well as I, that 
this would cut off all their communion and fellowship 
for each other. But these Old Baptists teach precisely 
this way, and declare nonfellowship for anything else, 
and I do believe that they think they are right. 

When Coltimbus returned from his voyage, and re- 
ported the discovery of the new world, (and named it 
America, in honor of Americus, who was the first man 
to put foot upon American soil,) with its vast territory 
and probable resources, my missionaries were rejoiced, 
and regarded it as a perfect "Bonanza," and determined 
with my aid to adopt it as their second "Goshen" or 
"Promised land" and thereby relieve themselves of 
oppression. But the oppressors came, and after a 
struggle of many years of toil and loss of blood, they 
were extricated from their iron grasp by the great 
soldier statesman, Greo. Washington, whose name you 
revere. 

Never did my missionaries expect again to be annoyed 
with these old predestinarians, such as Paul and these 
Old Baptists, with their poisonous decrees and fatalisms; 



120 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

for such is their theory, according to my conception of 
their views. 

But one Eoger Williams lurked into our camps, and 
commenced teaching and preaching their nefarious doc- 
trine ; and, strange as it may appear to you, he soon had 
disciples. And in order to stop his career, before he 
poisoned the whole country with his miserable heresy, 
(for he was no fool,) I had him exiled to Rhode Isla?id; 
but it did no good. He and his disciples soon organized 
and constituted a church, and it was impossible to stop 
the spread of their influence ; for the constitution of our 
then happy country after the declaration of independence 
(had it not been for them) guaranteed to them the right 
to worship God according to the dictates $>f their own 
conscience. 

And they at once went back to the teachings of Christ 
and his apostles, and commenced opposing the plans 
of my missionaries, and induced many good men to fol- 
low them, on the flimsy pretext that my missionaries 
had no, " Thus saith the Lord" for their various Christ- 
ian institutions. My missionaries came to me in their 
prayers, imploring me for assistance, and I impressed 
them that it would be best for a large number of them 
to join the Old Baptist church and swell their number 
until my missionaries could outvote them in their own 
church, and in their conferences and deliberations kill 
them by belonging to them. For they could not con- 
sistently refuse to be governed by their own liberal de- 
mocratic constitution, which guaranteed the right to 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 121 

rule to the majority. But. my friends, they actually 
beat my missionaries in this deep laid scheme, and sepa- 
rated from them, by declaring non-fellowship for them, 
on account of my missionaries having departed from 
the old landmarks, and having no "Thus saith the 
d" fo: their innovations upon primitive doctrine. 
Bed & Co.— Our God. we deeply sympathize with thee, 
and our hearts are pained with sorrow, and our bowels 
yearn with anguish, at your many disappointments in 
trying to save the souls whom you created for your own 
glory. And we feel sure that you would have saved 
and that you still would save many thousand more than 
you have or will save hereafter, were it not for the in- 
fluence of Satan, who has. and we fear will ever continue 
to beguile and decoy souls from your tender care regard- 
less of your great efforts to save them. And we know 
that you are not at fault, for you have used every effort 
up to the present, that the imagination can conceive of. 
And yet there are thousands who insult the offered terms 
of salvation, and tenaciously cling to Satan, or to these 
old predestinarian Baptists, whom we regard as being 
but a fraction better than Satan, in their decrees and 
fatalisms. They actually teach that salvation is only for 
a few. compared with the multitude, and that this few 
vas seen in the mind of Jehovah before the world began, 
and that their names were all written in the Lamb's 
book of life, and that they have a life relationship to 
Jesus, as well as a spiritual relationship to Christ, and 
that thev are bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, and 



122 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

that they are members of his body, and that they are his 
bride, or wife, and that it is impossible to separate them 
in this world, nor in the world to come ; that this body, 
wife or bride, typifies the church, and that it is impossible 
with all of our efforts, to add others thereto or take any 
therefrom, without hazarding the perfection of the church 
or bride, of Jesus Christ ; that Christ is as much related 
to the church, or his bride, as Adam was related to Eve, 
his bride ; and that Jesus died especially for his spouse, 
the church, but that He died for the whole human fam- 
ily in a common or time salvation. 

They further teach that all along through time this 
special salvation is manifested to the vessels of mercy, or 
heirs of promise, who are the predestinated or foreor- 
dained members of Christ's body, or church ; and that 
God at His own appointed time, and in His own appointed 
way, quickens them into spiritual life ; and that after 
being quickened, they then see the enormity of their 
sins, which they had never been able to see before, and 
that they are then loaded down with guilt and condem- 
nation, and that they then have a travail for deliver- 
ance resembling the travail of a woman with child, 
from her conception until her deliverance. They 
further claim that it is impossible to have a birth with- 
out a child, and that the child has nothing to do with 
its conception, travail or birth, neither does it have any- 
thing to do with putting itself in a condition to be born, 
naturally nor spiritually, nor does it know that it is a 
child, until it is born and taught of its natural parents, 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 123 

natural things, or born of its heavenly parents and 
taught spiritual things in the school of heaven, where all 
the ransomed of the Lord are taught. 

To prove their position, they refer to the conversation 
that took place between the Savior and Mcodemus, when 
the Savior told Mcodemus that he must be born again 
before he could see the kingdom of G-od. And they only 
have to ask a few questions to put our wisest divines to 
flight. And we are mortified and chagrined at the sim- 
plicity and ease that they seem to have in ridiculing our 
theory. . Only listen at a few of the interrogatories that 
they use in controverting the doctrine that we teach : 

Sirs, do you admit that Jesus used the allegory of the 
two births, in his conversation with Mcodemus, to illus- 
trate the spiritual birth ? 

We do. 

Do you agree that the two births must be similar, in 
order to make the analogy a good one, and that Jesus 
would not have selected an allegory that would not have 
held good in all of its literal and spiritual bearings ? 

We do. 

Well, then, did you have anything to do with your 
natural conception ? 

We did not. 

Did you, of your own volition, do anything in your 
mother's travail from conception to deliverance to put 
yourself in a condition to be born naturally ? 

We did not. 

Were you the sons of your fathers before you were born ? 



124 SUPPOSED ESTER VIEW. 

We certainly were. 

Could you iu any way prevent being the sous of your 
fathers ! 

We could not. 

When you were born, were you any more the sons of 
your fathers than you were before you were born \ 

We were not. 

Immediately after you were born, and dining your in- 
fantile life, were you not entirely helpless ! 

We were. 

Did not your mother and muses have to put you to 
your mother's breast, and put your natural food into 
your mouths to sustain your natural lives and develop 
you into manhood \ 

They did. 

When you were older were you not able to eat and 
digest stronger food I 

We were. 

Had you not been thus nourished, would you not have 
died or been natural dwarfs 1 

We would. 

If you had died in infancy would death have kept you 
from beiug the child of your father \ 

It would not. 

Finally, were you not able to feed and nourish your- 
selves ! 

We were. 

Do you believe that the church, to the heaven-born 
child, is a type of the mother to the natural born child. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 125 

and that the elders, deacons, and members are figures of 
the muses of the natural born child I 

We do. 

Well, sirs, do you not believe that the heaven-born 
child has to be fed with spiritual food, or. in other words, 
be indoctrinated by the teachers or nurses of the church, 
for their development in spiritual strength I 

We do. 

Without such spiritual food, do you not think that 
such a child would be a spiritual dwarf, and therefore 
dead to any spiritual interest in the church militant \ 

We do. 

But would it not still be a child I 

It would. 

Do you think, then, that this natural or spiritual food 
made them natural or spiritual children S 

We do not. 

Neither do you believe, then, that this natural or spirit- 
ual nourishment caused them to be born naturally, nor 
spiritually, do you \ 

We do not. 

Well, sirs, since you have been so kind as to admit 
that Jesus would not have used an allegory that would 
not hold good in all its bearings-, naturally and spiritually, 
we must say to you that you have indeed nailed your 
theory of free agency to the wall, and that spiritual self- 
volition must forever trail in the dust, and be numbered 
among the lost causes. 

Your accessions in the foregoing interrogatories have 



126 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

emblazoned the Old Baptist theory in pompous grandeur 
over all the isms of man, and set God up as the omni- 
potent ruler of the universe. " In whom also we have 
obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according 
to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the 
counsel of His own will." — Eph. i. 11. 

You have admitted that the allegory of the two births 
is a complete one, and that births must be similar to each 
other, and that there cannot be a child without a father, 
and that a father implies a child, and that a child has 
nothing to do with its conception, travail or birth, and 
that you could not help being the child of your father, 
and that you were your father's child before you were 
born, and that being born did not make you your father's 
child, and that you did not put yourself in a condition to 
be born, and that you were not able to live of yourself 
after you were born, and that if you had died in infancy 
you would have still been the child of your father. 

Now, sirs, you have never heard of a natural birth 
without a natural child. We admit that some natural 
children die in embryo, or in utero (in the mother's 
womb), but they are nevertheless children. Now, sirs, 
according to the popular theory that all the human 
family could be spiritual children and heirs of promise if 
they would, is to deny all that you have admitted, and 
say that the natural child actually solicits its own con- 
ception, travail and birth, and that the spiritual child in 
like manner is instrumental in its own conception, tra- 
vail and birth ; and that the allegory of Jesus Christ, as 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 127 

portrayed to Nicodemus, is a farce. If the whole human 
family have an undeveloped foetal spirit in them which 
they can nourish into spiritual manhood if they will, it 
stands as a certainty that there are untold millions of 
spiritual children who have died in spiritual embryo, 
that have never been regenerated and born again of the 
Spirit of God, and is a direct denial of God's power to ex- 
ecute His will in developing them into spiritual existence, 
and is a contradiction of the Scripture, ' ' Being confident 
of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good 
work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus 
Christ." — Phil. i. 6. Now, sirs, if you contend for the 
hypothesis that the whole human family have an unde- 
veloped foetal spirit in them, many of which die in 
Spiritual embryo, but are nevertheless spiritual children, 
you at once make the universalist monarch of the relig- 
ious situation, and your free agency or moral self -volition 
theory again trails in the dust. 

Now, sir, these Old Baptists will actually put these 
questions and arguments to us in such a way that we 
are compelled to answer them as we have the foregoing 
interrogatories, or expose our ignorance of analogical 
and spiritual reasonings. Notwithstanding their stupid- 
ity in the moral sciences and accepted literature of our 
advanced age, they always beat us in theology. And 
we much desire your kind admonitions and advice, for, 
with the present standard of the Bible, they are so well 
fortified that we find it impossible to compete with them 
in argument, and we much fear that ours is a lost cause, 



128 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW, 

with the present translation as our religious text book, 
although we are so sanguine as to the correctness of 
our theory. 

Armenian's God. — My friends, yours is a lamentable 
condition to be placed in ; and had I have known the 
dilemma that my former advice was going to lead you 
into, I should have advised you very different ; but this 
does not change the correctness of our theory, and I do 
hope that you will pardon me for thus leading you into 
an apparent defeat. But indubitable and untiring ener- 
gy will certainly accomplish any cause that is so just as 
ours. Although we have to combat against these Old 
Baptists, and all the old prophets and apostles, and my 
Son Jesus Christ as their leader, yet there are many en- 
couragements to stimulate us to press forward and 
abundantly hope to succeed. " Truth crushed to earth 
will rise again." So hold up your drooping heads, my 
friends, and lose no time in the prosecution of the fight 
to the bitter end, and I will help you all that I can. You 
know that we have ever been in the majority, even from 
the days of old to the present time, and have ever been, 
and always will be popular. Our arrogance and fashion- 
able society, with our polish of educational lustre, will 
always lead us to popular victory. And while they may 
beat us in theology, with the present Bible to aid them, 
your popular theories will ravish the young and tender 
minds of their youths, as well as hold the young of your 
own church nurseries ; and in this way we will be able 
to deride and rebuke them with their own natural off- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 129 

Spring, and cause them to be chagrined with their own 
theory. 

You know that they do not believe in educating their 
preachers to preach the gospel, which education would 
give them that glossy polish and popular suavity that 
my missionaries have. They thereby lose much of their 
influence among the educated masses, in their peculiar 
arrangement of syntax. And I would advise you to 
make all the sneering sport of their literature that you 
can, without making yourselves ridiculous, and teach 
your children the same lessons of derision, and allow your 
children to mock their preachers, and sneer at their theory 
of the Christian religion, and sport at their abuse of Eng- 
lish literature, and I tell you of a truth that you will 
drive many proud spirits away from them that would 
otherwise embrace their theory ; and we would lose their 
assessment in our treasury, and many of our most in- 
fluential preachers would soon become as rough and un- 
popular as theirs, for want of means to put on style and 
suavity. And you well know that for my missionaries 
to preach a popular theory of religion that will please the 
masses of the people, they must be well paid for it ; for 
if they study human nature and the Bible, as they should 
do, so as to mystify these unpopular paragraphs and 
verses that these Old Baptists delight in so much, they 
will have no time to do anything else for a living. 

I know that they say, " But G-od has chosen the foolish 
things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath 
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the 



i30 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

things which are mighty ; and base things of the world, 
and things which are despised, hath G-od chosen ; yea, 
and things which are not, to bring to naught things that 
are ; that no flesh should glory in His presence." — I 
Cor. i. 27, 28, 29. "For it is written, I will destroy the 
wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the un- 
derstanding of the prudent." — I Cor. i. 19. But this is 
sure to be wrong. How can a man preach, which you 
know is to teach, without brains and literary attainments 
that will qualify him to teach aright ? 

These Old Baptists are in possession of much vanity, 
and with old Paul's experience from nature to grace, and 
the transition so unexpected to Paul, and entirely un- 
sought for, they will baffle the logic of the most learned 
of my missionaries. 

They all rally around Paul's experience, and say that 
I teach all true ministers of the gospel in the school of 
heaven, regardless of earthly literature, and that I never 
call a preacher to preach the gospel without qualifying 
him, and that I would not be stupid enough to call a 
minister to the work of the ministry and then not 
qualify him with spiritual wisdom for the satisfaction of 
all those whom the Holy Spirit had prepared to hear with 
that spiritual understanding that is peculiar to my saints; 
and that none hear it with that spiritual understanding 
except regenerated saints, and that the rest are blinded, 
and cannot hear it, except in a literal sense, and there- 
fore mock its teachings. 

They further claim that all the Theological Schools 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 131 

that I have impressed my missionaries to establish in 
these latter days are a religious farce, and have nothing 
to do with saving souls or the plan of salvation. 

Now, my friends, you know that this is all absurd. 
How, in the name of common sense, can the people 
be saved without they are educated in all the moral 
sciences, so that they may be able to reason and come to 
conclusions from analogical standpoints, as to the ways 
and means of salvation that I have furnished all men, if 
they will only improve the oportunity that I have put 
in their reach, through the medium of my missionaries 
and their institutions ? And how is it possible for an un- 
educated man, who knows nothing of the derivation of 
English literature, to preach the gospel or teach it, when 
he knows nothing of the origin of the language that he 
talks ? And the idea of my not impressing all the human 
family alike, and that they cannot accept salvation if 
they will, and preach the gospel if they will only pre- 
pare themselves for it, is too absurd for intelligent men 
and women to entertain for a moment. And I am very 
sorry indeed that those old writers, and these Old Bap- 
tists, have gotten up such a theory, for it greatly re- 
tards our efforts in trying to save the people from ever- 
lasting perdition. One other thing that I wish to men- 
tion to you, not because we succeeded so well in it, but 
because it was such a singular failure. Many years ago 
I impressed my missionaries to proclaim from the pul- 
pit and in common parlance, that the Old Baptists were 
opposed to educating their children in the moral sciences 



132 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

and common literature of the day, and that they regard- 
ed ignorance as one of the chief elements of my special 
favors in spiritual gifts, etc. All of which has recoiled 
upon my missionaries, much to their chagrin and morti- 
fication ; and the false accusation is now deriding them 
from almost every literary college and school-room in 
the civilized world, and the sons and daughters of Old 
Baptists are now leading pupils in all colleges and schools 
that are not sectarian in their tenets of study, on the 
American and European continents, and claim that edu- 
cation is an indispensable boon to the happiness and 
prosperity of the rising generations in time, but has noth- 
ing to do with the plan of salvation or the preaching of 
the gospel, but that education enables the educated min- 
ister to use more select language in proclaiming the 
gospel, and exemplifying the Christian religion, and is 
better able to simplify the meaning of the Scriptures ; 
but that his education has nothing to do with his spirit- 
ual gift or call to the ministry, and that the illiterate man 
of God, who has been called and qualified of God for the 
ministry, can and does preach the same great truths of 
salvation by grace as does the educated minister, but not 
with such chaste language. "For ye see your calling, 
brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, 
not many mighty, not many noble, are called." — I Cor. 
i. 26. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the 
soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise 
the simple." — Ps. xix. 7. But you know that this would 
never do with my missionaries. It may suit these old 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 133 

fogies to put forward their ignorant, uneducated men, 
that they say I have called and qualified to teach and 
preach the unsearchable riches of salvation by grace, in 
order to confound the intelligence of my missionaries, 
and bring to naught our intelligent schemes and insti- 
tutions. Were we to adopt the practice of such ignor- 
ance, it would certainly destroy the influence of our pop- 
ular theories, and we would soon become a hiss and a 
by-word. 

I regret exceedingly that such a mass of so-called 
Scriptures should have ever crept into the Xew Testa- 
ment as the word of inspiration ; for no sane man could 
suppose for a moment that I would call a fool to preach 
or teach in such mysterious and divine things. 

These Old Baptists are presumptuous enough to give 
me the credit of doing many things in their favor that I 
am not guilty of, for which I would rebuke them, had I 
not made them free agents, and dare not interfere. They 
actually claim that my missionaries are huelings, be- 
cause they expect pay for preaching, and because they 
will not serve churches without pay, and say they are 
after the fleece instead of the flock. ' 'But he that is a 
hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are 
not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and 
fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the 
sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is a hireling, and 
careth not for the sheep." — John x. 12, 13. They say 
that when my missionaries are elected or called as shep- 
herds to look over or care for a flock (churchy and go in 



134 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

and out before them, and give them pasturage in spiritual 
things, my missionaries claim pay, as does the hirehng ; 
and that if the flock has a poor fleece, and the hirehng 
sees poverty and tattered raiment stealing or creeping 
upon him, (as is peculiar to a majority of God's chosen 
people) as typified by the creeping wolf upon his prey, 
the hireling fleeth, because he cares more for the fleece 
than he does for the flock, and that the wicked spirit 
that the wolf typifies, scatters the sheep, for want of a 
leader or shepherd to teach or feed them upon spiritual 
and divine food. 

How, in the name of common sense, can a preacher 
devote his whole time to the preparation of his sermons, 
so as to edify and please his congregations, and moralize 
them, and put them in a condition to seek salvation, and 
receive no pay for it ? 

Do these Old Baptists expect preachers to go decent so 
that they will not be a reproach to refined society, raise 
families in credit, travel and preach the gospel, and sub- 
sist upon the wind only ? It really appears so from their 
arguments, and the so-called texts of Scripture that they 
adduce. 

Is not the laborer worthy of his hire ? 

Did not Paul (who is one of their favorite apostles), re- 
ceive wages ? 

But, as usual, they always have a getting out place. 
Only listen at the quotation and its connections, and hear 
their interpretation of it: "Have I committed an 
offence in abusing myself that ye might be axalted be- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. i35 

cause I have preached to you the gospel of God freely ? 
I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do 
you service. And when I was present with you, and 
wanted, I was chargeable to no man ; for that which 
was lacking to me, the brethren which came from Mace- 
donia supplied ; and in all things I have kept myself 
from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep 
myself." — II Cor. xi. 7, 8, 9. "Go your ways; behold 
I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Carry neither 
purse, nor scrip, nor shoes, and salute no man by the 
way. And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, 
Peace be to this house ; and if the son of peace be there, 
your peace shall rest upon it ; if not, it shall turn to you 
again. And in the same house remain, eating and drink- 
ing such things as they give ; for the laborer is worthy 
of his hire. Go not from house to house." — St. Luke 
x. 3, 8. 

Now, sirs, these Old Baptists positively claim that 
these wages that Paul received were alms, or wages re- 
ceived from the hands of his more fortunate brethren for 
manual labor, and that the wages were given to or re- 
ceived by Paul to be bestowed upon the poor and afflicted 
of less fortunate churches ; and that Paul did not appro- 
priate it for self-aggrandizement, as do my missionaries 
of the present day. 

Paul further asserts that his brethren from Macedonia, 
who had been more fortunate in this world's goods, were 
willing and did help him in ministering to the wants of 
these poor, distressed and afflicted brethren, by furnish- 



136 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

ing him means to live upon while with the poor, that he 
might not be burdensome to them. For he declared that 
he had not been burdensome to them, nor would he be. 

They further contend that it cannot be proven by the 
New Testament Scriptures that Paul or any of the 
apostles ever preached for money as a business of gain in 
temporal things, but that they preached from a higher 
incentive, prompted by the spirit and power of God, as 
do the Old Baptists to-day. 

In the last quotation where it says, "The laborer is 
worthy of his hue," they contend that the connections 
fully explain the meaning, and that it does not mean 
what my missionaries would have it mean, when they 
are begging their laity and friends to pay them their 
hire : but that the apostles were sent into cities and coun- 
tries among strangers and enemies to the Christian re- 
ligion, and are represented as lambs among wolves, and 
are commanded to carry nothing of carnal things with 
them ; and if the son of peace {Spirit of Christ) be in the 
first house they enter, a sign was to be given to them, 
and they were to remain there ; otherwise they were to 
find a house whose inmates were the people of God. 
And they were commanded to "go not from house to 
house," nor to become burdensome, but to make this 
house their home, that they might earn what they con- 
sumed, and that their consumption was reckoned as 
wages, and therefore " the laborer is worthy of his hire," 
and that the apostles did not preach for money, as do my 
missionaries. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 137 

They further teach that there would be too much in- 
compatibility in the Scriptures for the apostles to de- 
nounce the spirit of Antichrist in one sentence for preach- 
ing for filthy lucre, and recommend it in another. Hear 
the denunciations of Paul upon the theories of my mis- 
sionaries : 

"For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other 
churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome 
to you? Forgive me this wrong. Behold, the third 
time I am ready to come to you ; and I will not be bur- 
densome to you ; for I seek not yours, but you : for the 
children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the 
parents for the children. And I will very gladly spend 
and be spent for you ; though the more abundantly I 
love you, the less I be loved. But be it so, I did not bur- 
den you ; nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with 
guile. Did I make a gain of you by any of them whom 
I sent unto you?"— II Cor. xii. 13, 18. 

My missionaries do not teach this way, neither have I 
impressed them with such a theory ; and with few ex- 
ceptions they are compelled to be paid for their time and 
services in the ministry, for they cannot live without 
means, and I have impressed most of them with the idea 
that it is not reputable to have hard hands and common 
apparel. 

Again, Paul says to his brother preachers (apostles), 
"For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, 
as it were appointed to death ; for we are made a spec- 
tacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. 



138 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

"We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in 
Christ ; we are weak, but ye are strong ; ye are honor- 
able, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour 
we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buf- 
feted, and have no certain dwelling place ; and labor, 
working with our own hands ; being reviled, we bless ; 
being persecuted, we suffer it ; being defamed, we en- 
treat. We are made as the filth of the world, and are 
the off scouring of all things unto this day." — I Cor. iv. 
9, 14. 

The above quotation will not suit the pattern of my 
missionaries, but very aptly applies to these Old Bap- 
tists, and I am not surprised at my honorable mission- 
aries in shunning the society of such a low and degraded 
set. And my advice to you, my friends, is to hold up 
your heads, and court the favor and approbation of the 
royal families of the land, and submit to no such lowli- 
ness as set forth by old Paul and these Old Baptists ; and 
with the approval of the elite and fashionable public, you 
are sure to succeed. 

Only listen how these Old Baptists revile the plans of 
my missionaries in paying my ministers for preaching 
the gospel and carrying it to others who would die and 
go down to endless perdition were it not for being sup- 
plied with the gospel through the medium of my hired 
servants. 

They contend that all true ministers are carried by 
the gospel, and that when the minister is imbued with 
the Holy Spirit, there is a propelling power in the spirit 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 139 

of the gospel that compels the minister to go and pro- 
claim the gospel to a dying world ; and that this spirit is 
so irresistible that it is like "fire in their bones," and 
that this impression haunts them by day and by night, 
and says unto them, " Woe unto me if I preach not the 
gospel." And that the ministers of Antichrist are hired 
to go and preach and carry the gospel, and are therefore 
peddling out or making merchandise of the gospel as a 
matter of gain, rather than labor with their own hands 
as did Paul and the other apostles. 

They further teach that the relationship of the church 
and minister is like unto master and servant. And that 
God requires that masters should give (not pay) to their 
servants that which is just and right, and that servants 
should obey their masters, not answering again, (or dic- 
tating,) and that for a servant to refuse to obey or do his 
duty, unless his master would obligate to pay him a 
stipulated salary, would be rebellion in the first degree, 
and would righteously merit chastisement. Or for the 
servant to dictate to his master how and what to do, 
would be presumption of a grave magnitude, and would 
justly deserve a sharp rebuke. And on the other hand, 
should the master receive the time, labor and benefits of 
the obedient servant, and then require that servant to 
feed and clothe himself, he would prove himself to be a 
cruel and unjust master, and would be in open rebellion 
against the laws of nature and of high heaven. 

" Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it, 
but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather, for he 



140 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's 
freeman ; likewise also he that is called, being free, is 
Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price, be not 
ye the servants of men." — I Cor. vii. 21, 24. They 
further claim that the ministry is a gift from God to the 
church, as a servant for the benefit and edification of the 
church, and that the authority of the minister to serve 
and administer to the church is a gift from God freely 
bestowed, which gift the minister dare not price nor sell. 
And that the man who professes a call from God to the 
ministry, to preach and serve the church, and then sets 
a price on his services, or proposes to peddle out the gos- 
pel to the highest bidder, it proves one of two things 
beyond a doubt. He is either a wolf in sheep's clothing, 
and after the fleece and not the flock ; or he is in open 
rebellion against the order of high heaven, and, Balaam 
like, has sold himself out for the wages of unrighteous- 
ness. 

They further say that the law from the great King of 
Zion is, " And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of 
heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, 
raise the dead, cast out devils ; freely ye have received, 
freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass, 
in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two 
coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves ; for the workman is 
worthy of his meat." — Mat. x. 7, 11. Which law all 
faithful servants wish to obey ; and that while the faith- 
ful servant freely bestows his gift, and serves in love, 
it is nothing but just and right, for those who are the 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 141 

happy recipients of this free gift that they should see 
that the servant does not suffer, but that he is cared for 
in a proper way. 

" If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a 
great thing if we should reap your carnal things ? " — 
I Cor. ix. 11. 

"Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which 
preach the gospel should live of the gospel/' — I Cor. 
ix. 14. " For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou 
shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out 
the corn. Doth God take care for oxen ? " — I Cor. ix. 9. 

"For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia 
to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which 
are at Jerusalem. It has pleased them verily ; and 
their debtors they are, for if the Gentiles have been made 
partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to 
minister unto them in carnal things." — Eom. xv. 26, 27. 

Now, my friends, these Old Baptists are not so much 
to blame after all, for they verily believe that these 
quotations are the words of inspiration. And if it were 
so, they would be strictly correct when they say that it 
cannot be proven by Bible testimony that either of the 
old apostles ever preached for a stipulated salary, or ped- 
dled the gospel out for money, as do my missionaries. 
But it seems from the reading of the above so-called 
Scriptures that these contributions are reckoned as alms 
to the poor downtrodden minister of God, who is reck- 
oned as the ox, and is as dependent upon the laity and 
friends for sustenance as is the ox upon his master's 



143 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

crib, whose mouth is not to be muzzled. And the tread- 
ing out the corn is reckon :d as the preaching of the gos- 
pel, which is not to be hindered by withholding of car- 
nal things from the servants of the church, or ministers 
of the gospel : which carnal things are not reckoned as 
a debt for services rendered, but as a Christian duty. 
And that the same unerring Spirit that stimulates the 
minister of God to go and preach the unsearchable riches 
of Christ, and to preach it without money and without 
price to the poor and afflicted -aims of God, will also 
stimulate the recipients of this heavenly message to 
minister to the poor oxen ers) of thier carnal 

things, in proportion as the Lord has prospered them. 

They further teach that the church conferences of my 
missionaries are legislative bodies, instead of being- 
ecclesiastical bodies, and that my missionaries enact laws 
that are not known in the Bible, which laws are for the 
purpose of establishing new institutions and inventions 
that will compel the laity to pay their preachers, from 
the fact that the members who are converted and bap- 
tized into the church by my ministers are destitute of 
this propelling Spirit that stimulates the true minister to 
go and preach, in h istained, and that stim- 

ulates all true >aints to give alms to the support of their 
pastor, servant or preacher. And that the converts of 
my missionaries are compelled to have a law to make 
them pay their preachers, and that some of the more 
wealthy members pay largely in their public meeting-. 
in order to make a display of their liberality and render 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 143 

themselves conspicuous and popular in the community, 
so that their merchandise and other pursuits may yield 
them larger profits. And that there are a few of the 
true and chosen people of God in their legislative churches 
who have been deceived and captured by the craftiness 
of these legislative churches, who pay our preachers 
from motives inspired by the spirit of truth, who think 
that they are doing God's service. 

My friends, these are grave accusations against the 
doings of my missionaries, and all intelligent people 
know that it is nothing more than a mental hallucina- 
tion of old Paul and these Old Baptists, and my advice 
to you is to pay as little attention to it as you possibly 
can ; for all sensible people know that these so-called 
Scriptures that seem to justify their theory of the plan 
of salvation are not the words of inspiration, but are the 
words of an insane Paul, and are the tenets of a bigoted old 
fogy denomination, and ought never to have been re- 
corded in the New Testament Scriptures ; and nothing 
but time and our New Translations will ever eradicate 
these pestiferous dogmas from the memory of these Old 
Baptists. 

Bed & Co. — With much anxiety and expectation we 
have listened to thee, Lord, and have been both edified 
and disappointed. We have been edified in the great 
expositions that you have made of the fabrications of 
those old writers, beside being much interested in your 
advice to us as to the proper course to pursue in our de- 
portment toward these Old Baptists, who are such a ter- 



14A SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

ror to our plans of spreading the gospel. But we have 
been lost in disappointment and our hopes have not been 
gratified as we had expected with a suitable remedy for the 
extermination of their pernicious dogmas. What a 
blessing it would have been in all generations had those 
so-called Scriptures, which prove their tenets to be true, 
never gone into type ; for we have made many efforts 
to explain their theory away. And when we apply Eng- 
lish literature to the chapters and verses that they rally 
around for succor, we utterly fail to make it mean any- 
thing but what they say it does, although we know it to 
be mere fiction and a misinterpretation of your meaning 
at the time it was written. But it will take years to 
beat it into the heads of these Old Baptists, for we have 
brought our ablest talents and literary men accompanied 
with common sense, against them, but aU to no purpose, 
and we think it will ever stand thus with them while the 
Scriptures read as they do at present. And to tell you 
the truth, sir, their aspirations in religious matters never 
run above what they are pleased to call the old paths, 
and they emphatically say that Christianity is not a pro- 
gressive science, and they are content to grope along in 
the old way, as though this was not an age of improve- 
ment. 

By the authority of Paul and others of the old writ- 
ers, these Old Baptists have merged into a theory of re- 
demption that bids defiance to the most learned of our 
theologians, and is in direct opposition to all our mission- 
ary schemes. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 145 

They say that all for whom Jesus Christ covenanted 
with the Father to save were merged into sin by their 
federal head, Adam, and were alike sinners with the 
children of perdition, and are by nature the children of 
wrath, even as others, (Eph. ii. 3,) and that the law 
knew no mercy, but demanded stern justice, which 
justice inflicted the punishment of death and banishment 
from the peaceful presence of God, and makes no allow- 
ance for the ignorance of its tenets, and therefore cor- 
poreal and spiritual death are inevitable results in the 
satisfaction of a divine law, and that all who fell under 
this law of justice would be banished from the peaceful 
presence of a just God, upon the hypothesis of God sav- 
ing the people upon the theory of justice being meted 
out according to our just deserts. " For all have sinned 
and come short of the glory of God." — Rom. hi. 23. "The 
thoughts of foolishness is sin, and the scorner is an 
abomination to men."— Prov. xxiv. 9. "Therefore by 
the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in 
His sight : for by the law is the knowledge of sin."— 
Eom. hi. 20. "Because the law worketh wrath: for 
where no law is, there is no transgression. "—Rom. iv. 15. 
" For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
every one that believeth. "—Rom. x. 4. " Who also hath 
made us able ministers of the New Testament ; not of 
the letter, but of the spirit : for the letter killeth, but the 
spirit giveth life."— II Cor. hi. 6. And that the souls for 
whom Christ died especially, (not in a common, or time 
salvation) were bought with the blood of Jesus, they 



146 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

being ten thousand talents indebted, and not a farthing 
to pay with, (see parable Mat. xviii. 23) sold under sin by 
their federal head, Adam, who left them no inheritance 
but the law of works to pay with ; which works, accord- 
ing to the writings of Paul, and others of the inspired 
writers, were not a legal tender for the debt of sin, and 
condemnation justly followed the law of works. 

It therefore required the blood of Jesus to redeem these 
favored ones from the condemnation of this holy law, as 
per agreement between the Father and the Son before 
the world began. ' ' For by one offering he hath per- 
fected for ever them that are sanctified.'' — Heb. x. 14. 

And that this blood covenant is typified in the old 
Testament Scriptures by the blood of the lamb on the 
lintles of the doors of the people of God, in time of the 
passover, (see Ex. xii.) and that all the saints of God 
were chosen in Christ by covenant between the Father 
and Son, and in time is developed, and is made manifest 
in their daily walk as Christians, and that this blood will 
be evidenced by then pious lives and godly conversations, 
and that they will be passed over by the destroying 
angel on the day of final retribution, because of the evi- 
dences of the blood of Jesus on the lintles of their 
hearts. 

They say that these favored ones, prior to regeneration, 
are completely bankrupt, and are wholly unable to com- 
mence paying the price of redemption, and illustrate 
their theory by supposing that A owes B ten thousand 
dollars in American gold, and that A is an invalid and a 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 147 

bankrupt, and cannot even commence the payment, and 
that justice demands that A pay the debt promptly at 
maturity, without any equivocation, mental reservation 
or secret evasion ; and that B prosecutes his claim to the 
last extremity of the law, which law knows no mercy, 
and would punish A with death, or imprisonment in the 
dark confines of outer darkness throughout eternity. In 
this dreadful extremity C steps in as a mediator between 
A and B, and says to B, who represents the law, Sir, I 
have a blood relationship to this man A ; he is bone of 
my bones, and flesh of my flesh ; and he cannot die nor 
go into prison. I have the American gold, and I will 
buy him out of this dilemma, and set him free, and the 
debt shall be remembered against him no more forever. 

In this figure they say that A represents a poor con- 
victed sinner who has been quickened into spiritual life 
by the quickening influence of the Holy Spirit upon his 
heart, softening his stony heart, unstopping his deaf ears, 
and opening his spiritual eyes, so that he sees, hears and 
knows his wretched condition by nature, and that he has 
violated the laws of God, which laws know no mercy, but 
demand justice, which justice would send him to endless 
perdition, knowing that " The heart is deceitful above all 
things and desperately wicked : who can know it ? " — 
Jer. xvii. 9. And that when all human efforts have 
failed, which efforts are always resorted to for refuge, 
until the poor hell deserving sinner, as he sees himself to 
be, has worked himself into complete bankruptcy, upon 
the Arminian plan of redemption, hoping to bring God 



148 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

under obligation to save him upon a principle of good 
works, he then despairs of salvation by the deeds of the 
law, or good works, which law condemns and does not 
justify. And is represented by B in the figure, who de- 
mands full payment, death or imprisonment. At this 
auspicious moment, on the part of B, who represents the 
law, C steps in and represents Christ in the satisfaction 
cf the law, and reveals himself to the poor lost sinner in 
the pardon of his great debt of sin, that the deeds of the 
law of works could not satisfy, and reveals himself to 
him, "the chief est among ten thousand, and altogether 
lovely," being his kinsman in flesh and spirit. "Even 
so we, when we were children, were in bondage under 
the elements of the world ; but when the fullness of the 
time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, 
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the 
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit 
of His Son into your hearts, crying Aboa, Father. Where- 
fore thou art no more a servant, but a son ; and if a son, 
then an heir of God through Christ. "—Gal. iv. 3, 8. 

" That we henceforth be no more children tossed to 
and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, 
by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby 
they he in wait to deceive ; but speaking the truth in 
love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the 
head, even Christ." — Eph. iv. 14, 15. "For no man ever 
yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, 
even as the Lord the church ; for we are members of his 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 149 

body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall 
a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined 
unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh." — Eph. v. 
29, 31. " But this man, because he continueth ever, hath 
an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able to 
save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, 
seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." — 
Heb. vii. 24, 25. 

Now, sir, these Old Baptists can with apparent ease use 
these illustrations and bring up Bible testimony in sup- 
port of their theory that actually mocks our theory of 
redemption, and positively puts our legal institutions of 
salvation by grace (on conditions that we accept the terms 
of salvation) to flight, as though God was going to reject 
us if we obey the law of good works, and accept salva- 
tion as the result of obedience to the law of God. They 
positively claim, from Bible authority, that our deeds of 
good works prior to regeneration condemn us. "Know- 
ing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, 
but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed 
in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith 
of Christ, and not by the works of the law ; for by the 
works of the law shall no flesh be justified." — Gal. ii. 16. 

And with such Scriptures as these, combating against 
our* theory, we actually become discouraged, and know 
not what to do, while the present translation of the Bible 
is recognized. And we call upon you with much fervency 
of prayer to hasten the time when the miserable heresies 
will be wiped from the face of the earth, and establish a 



150 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Bible that will approbate and save men in accordance 
with their deeds of merit, in working for the cause of 
the Master ; for we know that it is impossible for the God 
that we serve to save people who sit upon the stool of do- 
nothing, and reject others who are all the time engaged 
in some good work for the promotion of the cause of God 
in the salvation of sinners. The doctrine of those old 
writers and these Old Baptists are in direct refutation of 
the passages of Scripture upon which we base our theory, 
and they claim that with our construction of the mean- 
ing or definition of these Scriptures there would be an 
incompatibility in the Scriptures of divine truth that dare 
not exist in the Bible ; and that all that is written in the 
Old and New Testament Scriptures is in perfect har- 
mony, when properly understood, and that the Script- 
ures that seem to sustain our theory are inferential and 
nothing more than warnings to the child of God ; and 
that these inferential Scriptures must yield to positive 
declarations, and that the "wills" and "shalls" must 
have the precedence. " Whosoever is born of God doth 
not commit sin ; for his seed remaineth in him : and he 
cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children 
of God are manifest, and the children of the devil : whoso- 
ever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he 
that loveth not his brother. "—I John hi. 9, 10. " Peter, 
an aspostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered 
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Beth- 
ynia ; elect according to the foreknowledge of God the 
Father, through sanctification of the spirit, unto obedi- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 151 

ence and sprinkling of the blood of Jesns Christ : Grace 
unto you, and peace, be multiplied. Blessed be the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to 
His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively 
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 
to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that 
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are 
kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation 
ready to be revealed in the last time. "—I Pet. i. 6. " For 
this is the covenant that I will make with the house of 
Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws 
into their mind, and write them in their hearts ; and I 
will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people ; 
and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and 
every man his brother, saying, know the Lord ; for all 
shall know me, from the least to the greatest." — Heb. 
viii. 10, 11. 

" But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the 
mother of us all. For it is written, rejoice, thou barren 
that bearest not ; break forth and cry, thou that travail - 
est not ; for the desolate hath many more children than 
she which hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac 
was, are the children of promise. But as then he that 
was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born 
after the spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what 
saith the Scripture ? Cast out the bondwoman and her 
son ; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with 
the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are 
not children of the bondwoman, but of the free." — Gal. 



152 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

iv. 26, 31. "And when the Gentiles heard this, they 
were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord ; and as 
many as were ordained to eternal life believed." — Acts, 
xiii. 48. 

Now, sir, these Scriptures are positive declarations, 
and are perfectly incompatible with the Scriptures that 
seem to sustain our theory of free agency and apostasy. 
But these Old Baptists can reconcile them with apparent 
ease with their system of compatibility and harmony of 
the Scriptures. And the more fully to convince you of 
the ingenuity of the old fogies in baffling the skill and 
arguments of the most lordly of our experts in theology, 
we will quote to you some of our favorite texts of Scrip- 
ture, and give you their arguments, and show you the 
ease with which they harmonize them with their dogma 
of special election : ' ' 0, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that 
killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent 
unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children 
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wings, and ye would not." — Mat. xxiii. 37. "The Lord 
is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count 
slackness ; but is long suffering to usward, not willing 
that any should perish, but that all should come to re- 
pentance." — II Pet. hi. 9. 

"And it repented the Lord that He had made man on 
the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart." — G-en. vi. G. 
"And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of 
his death ; nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul. And 
the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. loo 

Israel."— I Saml. xv. 35. 4k And God saw their works, 
that they turned from their evil way ; and God repented 
of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them ; 
and He did it not." — Jonah ii. 10. 

Now, sir, these Old Baptists contend that Jesus Christ 
was verily God and verily man, and that he possessed all 
the divine attributes of God, and all the sympathetic 
attributes of man, and was like unto man in every par- 
ticular except sin ; and that the Father carried his 
humanity all through the days of old, and that there has 
never been a time with the Father that the humanity of 
Jesus was not with him, and that this humanity or sym- 
pathetic nature of Jesus did all of this "grieving," "re- 
penting," "sorrowing," "rejoicing," and "changing," that 
we have been accusing the Father of doing. Otherwise, 
they say, the Father would be changeable, and would 
not be as represented in the following Scripture : " Every 
good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and 
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is 
no variableness, neither shadow of turning." — James i. 
17. They further contend that the humanity of this 
same Jesus dwelt in the very bosom of heaven until his 
advent into this world, and that after doing his Father's 
will on earth he returned to his primitive glory with the 
Father in heaven ; and that before, during and since his 
advent, he had a perfect right, being clothed with this 
humanity, to make laws regulating the passions of his 
fellow human beings, and to revoke them at his will ; 
and as this body of Jesus was an incorruptible body, 



154 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

that it could not glory in the punishment of human 
beings. He therefore grieved, repented, sorrowed and 
rejoiced, with their miseries and joys, and revoked the 
chastising sentences of the law at his pleasure, and re- 
joiced when suffering humanity was relieved. 

This same Jesus was prophesied by the prophets of 
old, and it is said, " He is despised and rejected of men ; 
a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief."' — Is. lhi. 3. 
And that the human sympathy of this same Jesus would 
have gathered the children at Jerusalem, as a hen gath- 
ereth her chickens, and would have encircled the whole 
Adamic family with an everlasting salvation, had he 
been allowed by the Father to execute this human will, 
just as you and I would do. But he emphatically de- 
clares that * • All that the Father giveth me shall come to 
me ; and hhn that cometh to me I will in no wise cast 
out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own 
will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the 
Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he 
hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it 
up again at the last day. And this is the will of Hhn 
that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and 
believeth on him, may have everlasting life ; and I will 
raise him up at the last day.*'— St. John vi. 37, 40. 
''Saying, Father, if thou be wilhng, remove this cup 
from me : nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." 
— Luke xxii. 42. 

Hence they say it is evident from these quotations 
that he had a human will, as well as a divine will, and 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 155 

that while the divine will of the Father was dealing with 
the souls and spirits of men, his human will was dealing 
with the fleshly passions of men, and had forever been 
a high priest over the human passions of men, as far as 
he was permitted by the will of the Father ; he therefore 
had a perfect right to make laws, and revoke them at 
his will, when it did not conflict with the will of the 
Father. " Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy 
power, in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of 
the morning : thou hast the dew of thy youth. The 
Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest 
for ever after the order of Melchizedek." — Ps. ex. 3, 4. 
" For this Melchisedek, king of Salem, priest of the most 
high God, who met Abraham returning from the 
slaughter of the kings, and blessed him." — Heb. vii. 1. 
"Without father, without mother, without descent; 
having neither beginning of days nor end of life ; but 
made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest contin- 
ually."— Heb. vii. 3. 

Now, sir, they say that this high priest was a type of 
this same Jesus before he was manifest in the flesh, and 
that he came down from heaven, not to do this priestly 
human will, but the will of the Father. And from the 
fact of a former contract with the Father, he was under 
obligation to come down from heaven, and suffer and 
die specially for every one that the, Father gave him. 
And the Father was under equal obligation to the Son to 
give him every one that was agreed upon. Therefore as 
a man he made laws, and revoked them, and as a God 



156 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

he did the will of the Father, whose decrees are irrevoc- 
able, or he would not be unchangeable. And in confirm- 
ation of the whole matter, they have only to refer us to 
the supplications of Jesus in his prayer to the Father, to 
shut our mouths and deride our arguments. 

"I have glorified thee on the earth : I have finished 
the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, 
Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the 
glory which I had with thee before the world was." — St. 
John vii. 4, 5. 

They further say that if Jesus had asked for additional 
glory, it would have been presumption of a grave mag- 
nitude, and that he would have been asking the Father 
for more than was given to him in the covenant of re- 
demption ; and that by heirship none others were eu ti- 
tled to the inheritance, except the heirs of promise that 
had been given to the Son by the Father before the world 
began ; and that the Son was perfectly happy before the 
world began, being in full possession of all that the 
Father had given him in body and spirit, he being com- 
posed of the body of all the saints from the commence- 
ment to the end of time ; and their body and spirit 
being his body and spirit, he was perfectly happy with 
this eternal union of body and spirit. And that by 
agreement he and the Father created man as the natural 
progenitor of the entire human family, and that all 
along through time " as many as were ordained to eternal 
life believed, " (Acts xviii. 48) by the Father inspiring them 
with that belief, by sending forth the spirit of His Son 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 157 

into their hearts, and quickening them into spiritual 
life. " And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth 
the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, 
Father." — Gal. iv. 6. And that the Father draws them 
to Jesus by his love. ' ' The Lord appeared of old unto 
me, saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting 
love ; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. " 
— Jer. xxxi. 3. And that they being his kinsmen in 
flesh and spirit ; and that when this revelation is made 
to them in their conviction, conversion and regeneration, 
it is impossible for them to resist this love that is mani- 
fest in them, in their transition from nature to grace. 
And that this heavenly family having been made mani- 
fest in the flesh through the medium of their natural 
progenitor, Adam, and being deluged by him into sin. 

" For if by one man's offence death reigned by one, 
much more they which receive abundance of grace and 
of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, 
Jesus Christ." — Eom. v. 17. "For as by one man's dis- 
obedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience 
of one shall many be made righteous." — Rom. v. 19. 
And that the heirs of promise were by nature like the 
heirs of perdition, "and were by nature the children of 
wrath, even as others." Therefore by special contract 
there must be an offering for sin in the person of Jesus, 
who knew no sin, he having lived in perfect obedience 
to the law. He having satisfied the demands of the law 
with his righteousness, the sins of the people, whom the 
Father gave him, were imputed to Jesus, and they are, 



15S SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

or rather were, saved by an imputed righteousness, and 
not by any righeousness of their own ; for the law re- 
quires perfect obedience. " For all have sinned and come 
short of the glory of God." — Eom. hi. 23. 

And that from the fact of this eternal union of Christ 
and his people, Jesus left the climes of glory by contract 
with the Father, and made his advent into the world, and 
took upon himself a body of flesh and blood. " For 
what the law could not do, in that it was weak through 
the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of 
sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that 
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who 
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." — Eom. viii. 
3, 4. They further contend that this heavenly family 
were in Jesus Christ from all eternity, and that his 
righteousness was imputed to them from all eternity in 
the mind of the Father, and that in time this imputed 
righteousness of Jesus is manifested to them, in their 
conviction, conversion and regeneration, being born of 
that incorruptible seed, or Spirit of God. Jesus therefore 
prays the Father for the same glory that he had with 
Him before the world was, and does not ask for any ad- 
ditional glories, but would be perfectly satisfied with the 
same glory, without any diminution or addition of the 
souls of men. 

Had Jesus conferred with the human sympathies of 
flesh and blood, of which he had taken a part, he would 
have saved the whole human family with an everlast- 
ing salvation ; but he came down from heaven not to do 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 159 

this, but to do the will of the Father ; and the Father's 
will is, "That of all that He has given me I should lose 
nothing."— St. John vi. 29. 

Now, sir, if this doctrine be true, and all this heavenly 
family that were elected and chosen in Christ before the 
world began, and who are so sure to merge back into 
Christ at the final consummation of all things, upon the 
hypotheses of election and final perseverance, we must 
acknowledge our utter inability to see the necessity of 
preaching the gospel, and hence the fallacy of Jesus com- 
manding his disciples, "Gk> ye into all the world, and 
preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not 
shall be damned." — St. Mark xvi. 15, 16. And we much 
desire that you edify us on this particular subject. 

Arminian's GrOD. — My friends, before I attempt a so- 
lution of these questions, permit me to inquire, are these 
things true ? Of course, with the present translation of 
the Bible, these Old Baptists are well fortified, and with 
their construction of its teachings they are able to re- 
pulse our ablest divines. I can only tell you what these 
Old Baptists teach, and give you their feigned reasons 
for thus teaching, and then admonish you as to the great 
plan of saving souls through the medium of my mission- 
aries, whom I command and commission to go and carry 
the gospel to those who are destitute of its glorious and 
life giving principles, and who are dying and going to 
endless perdition for want of more evangelical ministers, 
who carry the very essence of the gospel in their hearts, 



160 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

and lisp its soothing fragrance upon the lintles of the 
hearts of all that will receive it upon the hypothesis of 
our broad platform of free agency. Only hear their 
quotations and interpretations : "For the preaching of 
the cross is to them that perish foolishness ; but unto us 
which are saved it is the power of God. For it is writ- 
ten, and I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will 
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. "—I 
Cor. i. 18, 19. "For after that, in the wisdom of God, it 
pleased God by the f oolishness of preaching to save them 
that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the 
Greeks seek after wisdom." — I Cor. i. 21, 22. 

Now, sirs, these Old Baptists claim that this spiritual 
understanding is only communicated to those who are al- 
ready saved, and that they stood saved in the eternal 
mind of God, and that they do not have to be saved, but 
that they are saved already, and that in time this spirit- 
ual wisdom is revealed to them, and that the preaching 
of the gospel saves them from seductions and error in 
this world, and that by obeying the mandates of the Mas- 
ter, by following him into the liquid grave, and being 
buried in the ordinance of baptism, and by being encir- 
cled in the pales of the church as established by Jesus 
Christ and his apostles. But that this salvation has 
nothing to do with the eternal destiny of the chosen peo- 
ple of God, but is the answer of a good conscience toward 
God, in that of obeying His precepts and examples. And 
that this kind of tuition was to the Jews a stumbling 
block, and unto the Greeks, foolishness, (I Cor. i. 23) and 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 101 

that my missionaries are to-day as were the national 
Jews and Greeks, and are therefore spiritually blind. 
"The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now 
save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, 
but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ." — I Pet. hi. 21. And that 
the preaching of the gospel is for the purpose of edifying 
and saving the chosen people of God in this mode of ex- 
istence, and has nothing to do with their final destiny, 
and that all spiritual communications are made to a 
quickened and spiritual people, by the omnipotent power 
of God, independent of all the effort systems that have 
ever been instituted by man. " But the natural man re- 
ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are 
foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, be- 
cause they are spiritually discerned." — I Cor. ii. 14. 

They further contend that it would have been unwise 
in the Master to have sent His apostles to preach to a 
people that had no spiritual discernment, and who were 
dead to spiritual things ; and that it was not the office 
of the preacher to preach spiritual lif e into them, as there 
is no spiritual life in preaching ; but that the subjects of 
God's amazing mercy must be made alive by the quick- 
ening influence of the Spirit of God before they can hear 
with that spiritual precision that is peculiar to God's 
chosen and regenerated people. For the natural dead 
cannot hear natural things, neither can they impart 
natural life ; therefore the spiritual dead cannot hear 
spiritual things, nor can they impart spiritual life nor 



162 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

hear spiritual things until spiritual lif e is communicated 
to them ; and that the preaching of the gospel will not 
put spiritual life into them, but that when life is com- 
municated to them by the opera^jon of the Holy Spirit 
upon their hearts, they are then able to see, hear and 
understand spiritual things, and are then ready to re- 
ceive and feast upon the preached word of Jesus Christ 
and his inspired writers. They further teach that all 
the epistles in the New Testament Scriptures are addres- 
sed to the church of God, and to no one else, and that 
Jesus Christ and his apostles would have been stupid to 
have addressed it to those who were carnally minded. 
" For to be carnally minded is death ; but to be spirit- 
ually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind 
is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law 
of God, neither indeed can be/' — Kom. viii. 6, 7. And 
that God has never set up but one church ; and there is 
but one Lord, one faith and one baptism ; and that my 
missionaries have many lords, many faiths, and many 
baptisms ; and that none but the regenerated people of 
God can understand the spiritual dealings of God upon 
his chosen vessels of mercy. And that my missionaries 
have no right to claim any of the spiritual dealings of 
God upon His people as taught in the Scriptures, but 
should hold strictly to the theory of salvation by works, 
as the Scriptures will not allow "grace" and "works" 
to be mixed in our eternal salvation. " And if by grace, 
then is it no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more 
grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace ; 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 163 

otherwise work is no more work." — Kom. xi. 6. But 
that when my missionaries are made willing by the 
mighty influence of God's Holy Spirit to give up all the 
institutions of the world for Christ's sake and follow 
Christ in baptism, and be buried with Christ in baptism 
by a legal administrator, and then follow the pattern 
laid down by Christ and his apostles, in all the ordin- 
ances of his established church, without taking anything 
therefrom, or adding anything thereto, leaving all the 
world and its concomitant vehicles of salvation, to be 
held to and participated in by those of the world who 
love the world and its institutions better than they love 
the church of Christ, then my missionaries will be enti- 
tled to the privileges of the church of Christ, and can 
claim the Scriptures as their spiritual counselor, as well 
as their moral, historical and literary guide. 

For many years I have impressed the various orders 
of my missionaries to slander the Old Baptists, in order 
to carry our theory into its fullest effects ; and I still 
think it best to misrepresent them. From the fact that 
the Old Baptists teach that the Scriptures are only writ- 
ten to the church, and that none but regenerated sinners 
can understand the Scriptures in their spiritual bearings, 
I have had my missionaries to positively assert from 
their pulpits, to their various auditories, that the Old 
Baptists positively refuse to preach to any except the re- 
generated people of God, or what they are pleased to call 
the church, on the pretext that the others could not see, 
hear nor understand with that spiritual wisdom that is 



164: SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

peculiar to the people of God. But the Old Baptists 
through all ages have positively declared this accusatiou 
to be false, and that they are commanded to sow the 
seed of the gospel broadcast, for they know not who the 
people of God are, and could not presume to single them 
out in a congregation ; but that God knows them, and at 
His own appointed time His Spirit will accompany the 
preached word, and that it will carry conviction to the 
dead sinner's heart ; and that this divine inspiration is 
like unto a light shining in a dark £>lace, illuminating 
the dark understanding of the then poor, sin-polluted 
sinner as he then sees himself to be, the reality of which 
he had been completely dead to up to this time. But he 
now cries out in the anguish of his soul, "Lord, be mer- 
ciful to me, a poor, sin-polluted sinner. " And that his 
very soul from thence until his deliverance is filled with 
supplication to the throne of mercy for deliverance, until 
the appointed time of the Father. And that when de- 
liverance comes, supplications are turned into praises and 
thanksgivings to God for thus delivering such a poor, 
hell-deserving sinner as he sees himself to have been ; 
and that the poor, delivered child of God's mercy is 
ready to exclaim, that if justice had been meted out to 
him instead of mercy, his portion would have been reck- 
oned among the damned. But he rejoices to know that 
while the epistles were written to the church, provisions 
have been made through the preached word that "He 
that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto 
the churches." — Rev. iii. 13, 22, compared with Rev. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 165 

xxii. 16. "I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify 
unto you these things in the churches." And these Old 
Baptists say that preachers are not angels, but that 
angels are messengers direct from heaven, conveying 
these glad tidings to the hearts of the people composing 
the churches, and that Christ's body is not divided, and 
that these churches are separate organizations for the 
sake of convenience, but are all the same body in Christ 
Jesus, and that they preach the same doctrine, and have 
the same Lord, the same faith, and the same baptism. 
" For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth 
and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. For we 
are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. 
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, 
and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be 
one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concern- 
ing Christ and the church. "— Eph. v. 29, 33. Therefore 
these Old Baptists say that a man must be made willing 
by the Spirit and power of God to leave all his pet soul 
saving machineries as instituted by my missionaries, 
and become willing to take Jesus Christ and his plan of 
salvation for surety, without any of the common auxili- 
aries that have ever been instituted by man, and if he 
cannot do this, that it shows a manifest want of faith, 
and that he is yet clinging to the traditions of his father 
and mother, and not willing to risk Christ ; and that an 
inspired apostle declares most positively, "They are of 
the world, and the world heareth them ; " (but that) "we 
are of God ; he that knoweth God heareth us. Hereby 



166 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. " — 
I John iv. 5, 6. And that when my missionaries preach 
the world hears them, because the unconverted have 
no difficulty in hearing a man-pleasing preacher, because 
their preaching is from natural reasoning ; therefore the 
natural man receives it and feasts upon it, because it 
feeds his natural and carnal propensities for self-aggran- 
dizement. But to the spiritual minded Jesus has said, 
" Blessed are your ears, for they hear," etc., and until 
this blessing is given to us, we are but natural and have 
no ability to hear or receive the things of the Spirit. 
These Old Baptists further teach that Jesus has said un- 
to the Father, " Father, the hour is come," etc. " I have 
manifested thy name to the men which thou gavest me 
out of the world : thine they were, and thou gavest them 
me : and they have kept thy word. Now they have 
known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me 
are of thee. For I have given unto them the words 
which thou gavest me ; and they have received them, 
and have known surely that I come out from thee ; and 
they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for 
them; I pray not for the world, but for them which 
thou hast given me ; for they are thine. And all mine 
are thine, and thine are mine ; and I am glorified in 
them." " I have given them thy word, and the world 
hath hated them, because they are not of the world, 
even as I am not of the world." — St. John xvii. 6, 7, 8, 
9, 10, 14. 
They actually challenge my missionaries to show 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 167 

another denomination except the Old Baptists that 
preach this doctrine as set forth in these texts of Scrip- 
ture. They therefore claim that they are the only or- 
ganized church of Jesus Christ under the canopy of 
heaven, and verify their assertions by undeniable proofs, 
and say that of ail people on earth, they are hated worse 
(for contending for this doctrine, by those composing 
what they are pleased to call the Antichristian churches) 
than all other denominations combined, as did the world 
hate the disciples and doctrines of Jesus Christ. 

They say that those who accuse the Old Baptists of 
not preaching to sinners, but to the church only, are 
willfully misrepresenting the Old Baptists, provided they 
have ever observed the tenets of the Old Baptists ; for 
they have ever preached to sinners, whenever a door has 
been opened unto them, to whoever may be present, 
whether the sinner hear or not ; and that the reason why 
the enemies to the doctrine of the Old Baptists accuse 
them is because they dare not give the children's bread 
to any but children, and withhold it from dogs, (Mark vii. 
27.) And that what my missionaries mean by preach- 
ing to sinners is to tell them to repent and believe the 
gospel, and that they can repent and believe the gospel 
if they will, upon their own volition or will ; and if they 
do not, that they will be damned. The Old Baptists say 
that Jesus and his apostles did not so teach, and that 
there is not a word of gospel in such preaching, and that 
such preaching is strictly false, and that repentance is as 
much the gift of God as is the remission or forgiveness 



168 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

of sin. "In meekness instructing those that oppose 
themselves, if God peradventure will give them repent- 
ance to the acknowledging of the truth." — II Tim. ii. 
25. " Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be 
a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel 
and forgiveness of sins." — Acts v. 31. 

Eld. Beebe says, " Before I attempt to give you my 
understanding of those passages to which you have call- 
ed my attention, I wish to premise first, that all revela- 
tion by the unerring Spirit of God to the saints is made 
to their faith, not to their reason. We are called to walk 
by faith, not by sight ; and to look not at the things 
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen ; 
for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things 
which are not seen are eternal. And, ' Faith is the sub- 
stance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen.' — See II Cor. v. 7 ; iv 18 ; Heb. xi. i. What there- 
fore God reveals to our faith is not to be doubted because 
of the blindness of our mental powers to comprehend it. 
The faith of Abraham impelled him to move forward, 
not knowing whither he went. The carnal mind (even 
of the Christian) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God ; for they are foolishness to the natural man (or 
mind) ; neither can he know them, because they are 
spiritually discerned. You cannot discipline or educate 

Note. — We hope to be pardoned for using a few extracts that are in 
point, from the facile and illustrious pen of the late Eld. Gilbert Beebe, 
of N. Y., (in writing to a dear sister,) whose pen and inspired mind we 
could not presume to equal, and whose demise we deplore. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 169 

your reasoning powers so as to comprehend the things of 
the Spirit ; for if that could be done, the conflict between 
the flesh and the Spirit would cease. 

You seem to think that if the Lord would give you 
light on the one point, everything else would be clear; but 
it is like the poetic idea of ascending the Alps ; as we 
gain what had appeared to be the summit, still we find 
Alps on Alps appearing. And finally we with the apostle 
will, after all that we can know is known, have to ex- 
claim, ' the depths ! ' The one perplexing point, if I 
rightly understand you, is that on which we have con- 
versed, namely, is the gospel to be preached to the un- 
godly ? And is the preaching of it to them a means by 
which they are to be quickened or born again? To 
these questions I can only repeat my former replies. 
The ' gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the 
world, for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the 
end come.' — Mat. xxiv. 14. ' Go ye into all the world, 
and preach the gospel to every creature.' — Mark xvi. 15. 
Both the commission and the example of Christ and his 
apostles show that the proclamation of the gospel is to be 
made unrestrictedly to all, which justifies Christ's min- 
isters in preaching wherever a door is opened, without 
first excluding from the assembly all who are not born 
again. And this preaching to a mixed multitude is not 
to quicken them, but is for a witness : and what does it 
witness ? It witnesses or discriminates between those 
who are and those who are not born again ; for he that 
hath an ear to hear will hear ; and as on the day of pen- 



170 SUPPOSED ESTER VIEW. 

tecost, they will gladly receive the woiv ; while all who 
are dead in sins will fail to receive it. It is a savor of 
life unto life to them that are born of God, and of death 
unto death to them that perish. Jesus has said. ' As the 
Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so 
the Son also quickeneth whom he will.' Is there any 
other way or means by which the dead can be quickened \ 
i Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my 
word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath (not shall 
or may have) everlasting life.' — John v. 21, 24. The 
hearing of the gospel, and the reception of it as a wit- 
ness, proves that the hearer and recipient of it has already 
passed from death unto life. Xone but God himself can 
make the dead hear, as He made Lazarus hear ; and this 
He will do, for He says, ' The hour is coming, and now 
is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, 
and they that hear shall live. 3 — John v. 25. Can any 
other voice penetrate the dark domains of death, and 
quicken the dead ? The gospel is glad tidings to the 
meek. — Is. lxi. 1 ; Luke iv. 18. Is the preaching of 
Christ's gospel or glad tidings to any others ? Tor unto 
us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them; but the 
word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with 
faith in them that heard. '— Heb. iv. 2. Faith is the fruit 
of the Spirit. Do any who are dead then possess faith ? 
Can any who are destitute of faith mix faith with the 
hearing of gospel preaching ? If they cannot mix faith 
with the hearing of the preached word, can they be pro- 
fited by the preaching I VTe in preaching say to all men, 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 171 

as our Lord said to Nicodemos, ' Except a man be born 
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' But that 
saying or preaching is not gospel or glad tidings to those 
who would prefer to be saved in some other way. The 
sovereignty of God. predestination, election, regen- 
tion and the new birth, the preservation of the saints by 
grace to eternal glory, with all promises, instructions. 
admonitions, laws and ordinances of Christ, is gospel. 
because it is glad tidings to the meek, to the heaven-bom: 
but it is not gospel, because it is not glad tidings, to those 
who hate it. It is not mixed with faith in those who 
have no faith, and it cannot profit them." 

These Old Baptists teach that anv other doctrine ex- 
cept the doctrine of the Bible, as exemplified by Elder 
Beebe. is the doctrine of Antichrist, and is therefore not 
the gospel of Christ. Because the world loves all other 
doctrines, and all other doctrines affiliate and nego- 
tiate with the loved institutions of the world, and run 
after them, and reject the doctrine of the Bible as 
taught by the Old Baptists, because it is the doctrine as 
formulated and preached by Jesus Christ and his apos- 
tles. They say that the blessed Savior taught his dis- 
ciples, when he was about to leave them. " Ye have not 
chosen me. but I have chosen you. and ordained you that 
ye shall go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should 
remain ; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in 
my name. He may give it to you. These things I com- 
mand you that ye love one another. If the world hate 
vou. ve know that it hated me before it hated vou. If 



172 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

ye were of the world, the world would love his own ; but 
because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you 
out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." — St. 
John xv. 16, 20. "I have given them thy word, and the 
world hath hated them, because they are not of the 
world, even as I am not of the world." — St. John xvii. 
14. " Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you." 
— I John hi. 13. They say that through his apostles he 
has taught them to "Have no fellowship with the un- 
fruitful works of darkness." — (Eph. v. 11.) And that 
these works of darkness are the religious institutions of 
men that are so zealously contended for by the religion- 
ists of the churches of Antichrist, and that when the 
children of God become entangled with these religious in- 
stitutions, and the church continues to hold them in 
church fellowship, that she is unfaithful to Jesus Christ, 
who has said, " Wherefore come out from among them, 
and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the un- 
clean thing ; and I will receive you, and will be a Father 
unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith 
the Lord Almighty." — II Cor. vi. 17, 18. And that such 
church members are falling away from the pattern of 
Christ, and are claiming citizenship with those who are 
strangers to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and are therefore 
disloyal to the mandates of the Captain of their salvation. 
Elder Beebe says, in his letter to the sister, "But I will 
attend to the passages to which you referred. First, 
Ezekiel hi. 16, 22. ' Son of man, I have made thee a 
watchman unto the house of Israel. ' Why not the house 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. L73 

of Esau, and to everybody else ? Because the word of 
the Lord confined his charge to the house of Israel ; and 
if He had extended his watchcare to any other house or 
people, he would have disobeyed the Lord. He was com- 
manded to receive his instructions at God's mouth and 
from no other source. The house of Israel was the 
family of Israel, God's peculiar people; to that house, and 
to no other, God sent His prophets. To them, and to no * 
other people, He gave His law, as a covenant of works. 
And if the prophet Ezekiel had attempted to apply that 
law to the heathen nations round about them, and called 
on the Gentiles to wrangle with Israel, to be circumcised, 
and to worship in the temple at Jerusalem, he would 
have transgressed the commandment of his God. The 
law and the priesthood of the house of Israel differed 
from that of any other people. That law provided that 
when an Israelite had done wickedly, if he should turn 
from his wickedness and do that which was lawful and 
right, bring his sin offering to the priest, etc., he should 
be restored to his place and privileges in that house, and 
his wickedness should not be remembered. And if a 
righteous Israelite should turn from his righteousness 
and violate the law, his former righteousness should not 
be remembered. The responsible position of Ezekiel, as 
a watchman to the house of Israel, imposed on him the 
duty to receive the word at the mouth of God, and bear 
that word in every case precisely as he had received it 
from God. Hence we find him bearing his messages to 
Israel, and to her kings, her prophets and her priests, 



lfct SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

saying, ' The word of the Lord came unto me, saying/ 
etc. These, or similar words, preceded almost every 
message that he bore to them. As a watchman, he was 
to stand in the watch-tower, and watch for the word of 
the Lord ; and when the word of the Lord came to him, 
declaring either good or evil to the house of Israel, or to 
any who were of that house, he was to deliver his mes- 
sage faithfully, or he was charged with the consequence 
resulting from his negligence or disobedience. 

Now the house of Israel under the law was a type of 
the gospel church under law to Christ ; and the prophet 
was a type of, first, Christ as the prophet and bishop of 
his people, and secondly, of those who are called of God 
to the gospel ministry, to take the oversight of His flock. 
And the law which Israel was under was typical of the 
law and discipline of the gospel church. The law of 
Christ requires the gospel watchman to speak to the 
house of God, the church, the true and anti-typical house 
of Israel ; and the charge upon them is to bear no 
message that they have not received at the mouth of God, 
and faithfully to deliver or bear every word to the 
church, and to all who are of the household of God, just 
as they have received it from God ; and if they add to it, 
God will add to them the plagues which are written ; or 
if they take from it, God will take from them their part 
out of the book of life, and out of the holy city. — See 
Eev. xxii. 18, 19. Life and death by the law, to the 
children of Israel, prefigured gospel standing and fellow- 
ship in the gospel church, or expulsion therefrom by the 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 175 

laws of the kingdom. If a gospel minister, as a watch- 
man on the walls of Zion, departs from the word of the 
Lord, fails to declare his word faithfully to the saints, 
or if he adds to the word of the Lord, preaching what he 
has no ' Thus saith the Lord ' for, whatever his standing 
has been, the laws and the discipline of the house of God 
will expel him from the holy city (the church) and erase 
his name from the registry of the living in Jerusalem. 

Death to the offending Israelite, under the law of 
Moses, answers to or is typical of exclusion from fellow- 
ship under the gospel. I cannot dwell as fully on every 
point as I would wish, without making my letter too 
long. 

1 Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am 
pure from the blood of all men ; for I have not shunned 
to declare unto you all the counsel of God,' (Acts xx. 
26, 27,) to which you call my attention, appears to me 
both confirmatory and illustrative of what I have writ- 
ten on Ezekiel hi. 16, 22. Paul assured the Elders of the 
gospel church that he had not shunned to declare all the 
counsel of God. As a faithful watchman he had faith- 
fully delivered to those Elders and to the churches every 
word that he had received from the Lord, and therefore 
stood acquitted from the blood of all who in the churches 
should disregard the counsel of the Lord, and lose their 
standing in the church thereby. He was not responsible 
for their heresy or disorder, for he had faithfully warn- 
ed them, and with tears. And now, as he knew that he 
should see these Elders no more, he takes the opportun- 



176 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

ity to exhort them to do as he had done ; for he recog- 
nized them also as watchmen, having been made over- 
seers of the flock of God, (but of no other flock,) to feed 
the church of God, which He hath purchased with His 
own blood. 

As watchmen they were to look out for those things 
which he knew would take place after His departure, 
and to faithfully warn the church of God to beware of 
wolves, and also to be on their guard against those of 
their own selves, who should rise up speaking perverse 
things, to draw away disciples after them, ' Therefore 
(he charged those Elders as watchmen,) watch, and re- 
member, that by the space of three years I ceased not to 
warn every one night and day with tears.' And yet he 
knew that some of these very Elders whom he had so 
faithfully warned would not heed his warnings; but he 
was pure from their blood, or from responsibility for their 
apostasy. But I cannot find here any admonition to the 
Elders to divide their watchcare, and bestow a part of 
their labor outside of the church of God, which He has 
purchased with His own blood, nor to try to persuade 
those grievous wolves, which should come, to change 
their wolfish nature, and become harmless lambs and 
sheep. 

A few words now on the last passage you referred me 
to : 'To open their eyes, and to turn them from dark- 
ness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, 
that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance 
among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. ' 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 177 

■ — Acts xxvi. 18. This text beautifully expresses, in 
strong figurative words, the work to which God called 
Paul, and I believe it also shows what is the work of the 
gospel ministers generally. Let us see. ' To open their 
eyes ;' that is the eyes of those Gentiles to whom the 
Lord sent him. Now what would be the effect of open- 
ing the eyes of a dead man ? It certainly can be done. 
Experiments by galvanism have been made on dead 
bodies, causing their eyes to open, and other movements ; 
but can a dead person see any better with the eyes open, 
than when they are shut ? But apply the figure, as it 
is evidently intended, to those unto whom God has given 
spiritual life. When Jesus quickened Lazarus from the 
dead, and called him out of his grave, he came forth a 
living man ; but a napkin was on his face, and had to be 
removed before he could see. We cannot think the re- 
moving of the napkin while he was dead would have 
made him see. Your own case, my dear child, is in 
point. I have every assurance that you have passed 
from death unto life ; but you complain that there are 
some things you cannot yet see ; you have been laboring 
long to understand the true meaning of these Scriptures 
which you have called my attention to. You say it 
seems to you that if the Lord would give you light on the 
one point, everything else would be clear. Now you 
certainly have eyes to see, or you would never have seen 
your lost condition, or the salvation that is in Christ 
Jesus. As the apostle says, Eph. i. 18, 'The eyes of 
your understanding being enlightened, that ye might 



178 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

know what is the hope of his calling,' etc. The great 
object of the preaching of the gospel is to edify and en- 
lighten the living children of God ; and as when onr 
eyes are closed, the light being thereby excluded from 
them, they require to be opened that they may see and 
enjoy the light, so Paul was sent to the Gentiles to open 
their eyes. He did not open the eyes of all the Gentiles, 
but those to whom God sent him. For God had a people 
among the Gentiles, who were sitting in darkness, 
surrounded by idolatry, and he was sent to enlighten 
them, and i to turn them from darkness to light.' God's 
living children are frequently involved in darkness ; but 
when the glorious light of the gospel shines even unto 
them, the preaching of the word dispels the darkness, 
and being delivered from the power of darkness, they 
gladly turn from it and have no fellowship with the un- 
fruitful works of darkness, but walk as children of the 
light. 'And from the power of Satan unto God.' It 
is said of God's children, that they ' were some time 
darkness ; but now are ye light in the Lord.' But as the 
light of the gospel is life (' In him was life, and the life 
was the light of men, ') so until they were quickened no 
preaching could possibly enlighten them, nor turn them 
from darkness to light. And in the darkness of death, 
in which they all were by nature involved, they were in 
the power of Satan, led captive by him at his will. But 
being now born of God, they have eyes to see, and ears 
to hear, and hearts to understand ; but still they require 
the gospel ministry to open to their view the things of 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. It9 

the kingdom. The Gentile converts to whom God sent 
Panl required the instruction which was sent them from 
God, who is the Father of lights, to open their eyes, en- 
lighten their understanding, and deliver them from the 
errors they had cherished, and so deliver them from 
Satan's power, and lead them in the way of truth and 
righteousness. God had forgiven their sins and put 
them away by the one offering of Christ ; but the joyful 
reception of that forgiveness could not be felt or known 
until the eyes of their understanding were opened to 
know what was the hope of their calhng. When en- 
lightened by the Spirit, and instructed by the preached 
word, instead of continuing longer to commend them- 
selves to God by the works of the law, they gladly re- 
ceive the word, which assures them that all the pro- 
visions and promises of the gospel are unto them, and to 
their children, and to all them that are afar off, even as 
many as the Lord our God shall call, and then do they 
receive the forgiveness of their sins from him who is ex- 
alted a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel 
and the forgiveness of sins. This gift of repentance and 
remission of sins, being given to them as the children of 
God and heirs of immortality, is a part of their inheri- 
tance and establishes their interest in common with all 
the sanctified in all the fullness of the inheritance of the 
saints in light. They that are sanctified, consecrated, 
set apart to be saints and heirs of this divine inheritance, 
are so distinguished by faith, which is in God." 

I have now shown to you, my friends, from the facile 



180 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

and illustrious pen (as these Old Baptists are pleased 
to call it) of one of the leading disciples of his day, the 
culminations of this heretical doctrine that they so viv- 
idly bring to bear upon the minds of those that they 
claim have been so powerfully illuminated by the Spirit 
of God shining into their hearts, making that great 
specialty that has been such a terror to me and my mis- 
sionaries through all the days of antiquity up to the 
present ; and their eloquence is almost equal to the elo- 
quence of Paul, who was also one of their great standard 
bearers, and their arguments are almost as conclusive as 
Paul's were when he was arraigned before King Agrippa 
and got permission to speak in his own defence, and 
said, "Whereupon, King Agrippa, I was not disobed- 
ient unto the heavenly vision." — Acts xxvi. 19. And 
they are equally bold in their assertions, regardless of all 
the intimidations and mockery that my missionaries can 
throw around them. 

I now see that we will have to add many new inven- 
tions to our missionary mills, before we will be able to 
check their onward march to victory ; and even then I 
fear that my disciples will not be able to compete with 
them. Their forces are truly small, but their soldiers are 
valiant and well disciplined, or they could never stand be- 
fore such an array of musketry as surrounds the vaults 
of my missionaries, and our cause is doomed to go down 
into the habiliments of disgrace and ruin forever, should 
we suffer such a defeat from such stupid intellects and 
inferior numbers. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 181 

And as our old system of straw beds in altars, to pro- 
tect the clothing of our finely attired convicts, while 
shouting and rendering praises to me and my mission- 
aries, has become stale and obsolete to some extent in 
its effects, I would advise you to follow the very in- 
teresting examples of my beloved disciples, Maj. Penn, 
Moody and Sankey, and others, whom I have impressed 
with the importance of a religious circus. This idea 
was conceived from the multitudes that attended the 
amusement circuses of Messrs. Eldrid, Eobinson Eey- 
nolds and others, of the United States and the Old World, 
and the vast amount of income that was incident to 
their menageries and side shows. And you well know 
that our motto is, not to be beaten at anything that will 
foster to the salvation of souls, and the support of my 
missionaries. These old ideas of straw pens, altars, 
camp-meetings, protracted meetings, anxious benches, 
etc., as instituted by one of my most lovely disciples, to- 
wit, John Wesley and his disciples, and afterwards 
adopted in part by one of my proudest modern disciples of 
Missionary Baptist notoriety, to- wit, Andrew Fuller and 
his disciples, has been a great lever in the salvation of 
many souls. But as machinery grows old and stale, new 
wheels and leverage must be added thereto, if we would 
keep pace with the age. I would therefore advise you, 
as soon as you can accumulate a sufficiency of money, 
that you purchase a large cloth tent, made of heavy 
ducking, that will cover near or quite a half -acre of land, 
in which to hold your revival meetings, and at the same 



182 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

time have you several thousand circulars struck, and 
send them in advance of you, stating when you will be 
at a certain town or community, and that you will con- 
tinue the meeting from day to day until all the material 
who perchance can be induced or hoodwinked and cast 
into our missionary hopper, and ground through our 
missionary mill, and made into confirmed missionary 
Christians. After which you will move to some other 
locality ; not forgetting, however, to take up several 
collections while you stay ; for you well know that every 
business that is worth following must be self-sustaining, 
and the good people will ever be ready to pay you liber- 
ally for the vast amount of spiritual and moral good 
that you have done in their community. Another good 
idea is, that when you send your circulars in advance of 
you, publishing your appointments, that you select by ap- 
pointment some live Christian, within the limits of the 
prospective meeting, who will circulate a very feeling 
subscription among the good people, who are always 
zealous in their efforts to have the people saved ; and 
get as many obligations to have the meeting and minis- 
try sustained as possible. This will always answer as a 
kind of base, upon which the minister can act freely. 
Beside which, it will give publicity to the meeting, and 
cause many poor souls to come out and embrace salva- 
tion, that would otherwise be lost. And, of course, the 
more excitement you can get up, and the greater the 
display that you make, the more attendance and converts 
you will have. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 183 

In your revival meetings, you must not preach upon 
the doctrines of the New Testament. If you do, you will 
destroy the interest of the meeting. But you must 
preach upon the subject of practical religion, and con- 
clude with exhortation, anxious benches, and proposi- 
tions in every conceivable shape that you can put them, 
so as to beguile those who are too timid to be a hind- 
rance to the cause of Christianity. And if, perchance, 
there are some present who are too stubborn to accede to 
your propositions, and who contend as do these Old Bap- 
tists, that your system is the system and religion of Anti- 
christ, which system they are admonished in the New 
Testament to touch not, nor handle, lest they become 
partakers of your evil deeds, all such you can at once 
brand with infidelity, and say to them that they are 
there as monuments or pillars of stone, for the hind- 
rance of the gospel, and that their influence will be reck- 
oned against them on the day of final retribution. Per- 
haps in another decade the above stratagem in soul sav- 
ing will become inert, as has Mr. Wesley's and Mr. Ful- 
ler's plan, at which time the emergency of the case will 
suggest something new that will in all probability carry us 
through many years, without our having to fall upon the 
fogy pattern of Jesus Christ, his apostles, and these Old 
Baptists. I would suggest that in all of your religious 
exercises you watch the anxious benches, and those who 
are affected in the congregation, and especially the 
youths, many of whom are exceedingly timid in mat- 
ters of religion, and send the old sisters and gray-headed 



184 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

sires, who are zealous of good works, to pray with and 
admonish them ; and if they succeed in wilting them 
down, and extract from them tears of contrition, you can 
then with complacency have the old sires and matrons 
take them by the hand and escort them to the altar or 
to the anxious benches, where you can with impunity 
tell them to repent of their sins, and that they can repent 
if they will, and if they will come to Jesus right, which 
is entirely within their power, that you will pledge them 
your soul for theirs if he does not bestow the blessing. 
Of course, many of them will find out that if the New 
Testament is true you have miserably lied to them ; but 
you know that it is only true in part, but you must pre- 
tend to believe it all. But such as impeach your honesty, 
unless they are well skilled in the Bible, which is not 
common with the young, you will soon be able to repulse, 
by making them believe that they themselves are the 
liars, by telling them that they did not come to the altar 
or to the anxious benches right ; that there was some 
secret sin that they did not give up, that they could have 
given up if they would. But if you happen to meet with 
one who understands and accepts the present translation 
of the Bible, who tells you that repentance is a gift, 
freely bestowed, and that it is not merited on account of 
good works, which gift, according to apostolic teachings, 
he cannot secure by works of obedience to the law, and 
that according to the teachings of the New Testament 
this gift is freely bestowed at a time when it was least 
expected, and of course unsought for, my advice to you 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 185 

would be to let that personage alone, or laugh at his 
ignorance in a jocular way, and find some excuse to get 
into other society as soon as you can, or he or she, as the 
case may be, will expose your cause and injure your busi- 
ness. I would further advise, that when you have been 
successful in securing several mourners at your revival 
meetings, that you select several of the most pious and 
sanctified Christians to take charge of these mourners, 
and put them under rule, and not suffer them to associate 
with the unconverted, until their conversion has been 
made complete. These pious Christians, of course, must 
talk and pray with these mourners, and must not fail to 
have them attend each hour's service at the church or 
canvass, and they must constantly persuade them that 
their sins are forgiven, and that they feel sure that it is 
their duty to join the church ; and that " he that know- 
eth the Master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten 
with many stripes," and that if they will discharge their 
duty by connecting themselves with the church, they 
will experience a peace of mind that they have never be- 
fore realized. About this time it will be the duty of the 
minister to see them, and confirm all that has been said, 
by rehearsing his own experience, and making it harm- 
onize with the travail of the new convert. And of a 
truth my friends, nine out of ten, when all these mani- 
pulations are brought to bear upon them, will acknow- 
ledge that they have been changed, and will without fur- 
ther hesitancy join the church. And then for these Old 



186 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Baptists to say that our missionary mills will not grind 
out good Christians, is all homespun and bosh. 

It is further advisable in your revival meetings that 
you have a few old sisters who are well disciplined in 
exhortation, shouting and singing praises to your God, 
and a few old brothers who are gifted in offering up 
eloquent and exciting prayers ; and when the excitement 
is in full blast, your minister or some zealous old brother 
should relate, by way of exhortation, some miserable 
death-bed story of some wretched dying infidel or re- 
ligious skeptic, and contrast the scene with the death- 
bed joys of some pious old Christian, and point out in 
sympathetic strains of eloquence, the miseries of the one 
and the joys of the other, and then appeal to the dying 
congregation to come to the altar and anxious benches 
where prayer will be offered in their behalf to a throne 
of grace for the pardon of their sins ; and that if they 
fail to embrace the golden opportunity that is then 
offered to them in securing their eternal salvation, it 
may be that it will be too late, and that before another 
opportunity is offered they may find themselves in the 
awful habiliments of a never ending hell. 

About this moment the sympathetic tears will be trick- 
ling from every eye in the audience whose heart has 
been touched. And you should lose no time in sending 
the old sisters and brothers through the auditory to hunt 
out the timid mourners and conduct them to the altar 
and anxious benches for prayer to be offered for the sal- 
vation of their poor afflicted souls. And the minister 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 187 

should lose no time in branding those who would 
not yield to the excitement, with infidelity and skep- 
ticism. 

During this excitement, some poor mourning soul 
whose nervous temperament predominates all the other 
temperaments of the physical organism, will in all prob- 
ability swoon or go off into a religious trance, and have 
to be borne away, to give nature a chance for resuscita- 
tion. This, my friends, is one of the most powerful, 
conclusive evidences to an audience of the genuineness of 
our cause ; for there really seems to be something in it 
that is supernatural, and it acts more powerfully upon 
the human senses than the most gigantic freak of leger- 
demain in a sleight-of-hand show. 

Under all of these convincing circumstances of the 
justness of our cause, if there should be any of the be- 
lievers or disciples of these old predestinarian, tight-fisted, 
iron-jacket, hard-shell, forty-gallon, brown-jeans, close- 
communion, vulgar, feet-washing, always-right, and 
everybody-else-wrong, kind of Baptists present, they 
will just simply wilt under our influence. And should 
they attempt to disabuse the minds of the people, as they 
would term it, and claim that our conversions are a freak 
of hallucination, or mental delusion, produced from ani- 
mal excitement or human sympathy, and that it is des- 
titute of the seasoning efficacy of the grace of God, 
and attempt to quote any of the old apostles, prophets, 
or Jesus Christ, to prove their position, and to tell you, 
"For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, 



188 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

as in all churches of the saints " (I Cor. xiv. 33); and that 
it is reproachful for the old sisters to exhort and pray 
aloud in the churches of the saints, " Let your women 
keep silence in the churches ; for it is not permitted unto 
them to speak ; but they are commanded to be under 
obedience, as also saith the law. • And if they will learn 
anything, let them ask their husbands at home ; for it 
is a shame for women to speak in the church." (I 
Cor. xiv. 34, 35). But that God suffered such confusion 
in the churches of Antichrist ; so that all the saints who 
have been taught in the school of heaven, and who have 
been under the discipline and tuition of the true and 
faithful ministers of Jesus Christ ; will be able to see 
the discrepancy between those who serve their God in a 
tumult, and those who serve God in quietude, as becom- 
eth all genuine Christians. But public opinion is so 
fully convinced in our favor that nothing but a super- 
natural, power could convince them, and that no such 
miraculous conversions, as their eyes have witnessed in 
our religious exercises, could be otherwise than genuine. 
And these old fogies, in many instances, will actually 
shrink from speaking their sentiments, because public 
opinion will frown them down, and hiss them from 
society. You have science, intellect, numbers and pub- 
he opinion on your side, and have nothing to fear, ex- 
cept their so-called Bible quotations ; and with your in- 
genuity you can always pervert and evade them in such 
a way as to keep public opinion in your favor. 
When your meeting is over, it will be the duty of some 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 189 

live, energetic Christian to canvass the town or commu- 
nity in which you have held the meeting, with a very 
feeling and sympathetic appeal to the good people, by 
way of subscription, in the interest of the treasury of 
the Lord, to pay the minister an extra fee for the great 
sacrifice that he has made, in leaving his wife and dear 
ones, and the churches of his home, who required all 
his time and energies, but that he had torn loose from 
them for a short time, and had come a long distance, to 
save the inhabitants of the town or conmiunity. Of 
course you will get several dollars, halves and quarters, 
many of which will be given reluctantly ; but the people 
will give them in order to keep pace with society and 
public opinion. 

I have now advised you as best I could, in a systematic 
programme of saving souls, but do not intend to limit 
you in means and instrumentalities. Should you at any 
time see that new wheels or new cogs to the wheels of 
our missionary mills would foster to the salvation of 
souls, you will at once introduce them ; for I verily be- 
lieve that the time is approaching when our present, sys- 
tem will become stale, and will fail to sustain my mis- 
sionaries. At which time I would advise that you re- 
quire and accept admission fees, before you allow the 
people seats inside our canvas or missionary circus. Of 
course many persons will pay it, rather than take the 
chances of losing their souls. 

Many of our fine city churches require rents for pews 
now, which is the same thing in substance. According 



190 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

to the present laws of our land and nation, it would be 
unlawful for us to receive admission fees for any kind of 
menagerie without paying taxes, and of course some evil 
one would take advantage of the law and expose our 
cause before the courts, and in all probability prove that 
our fees were for selfish motives, instead of being in- 
tended for the advancement of Christianity. And should 
they use the law of the present New Testament to prove 
the correctness of true Christianity, they would inflict 
heavy penalties upon us. Before you adopt this plan 
you had best send lobbyists to your legislatures and have 
them manipulate with the members, and repeal the law 
in such a way as to allow a religious circus to exhibit 
without taxation. 

These Old Baptists may howl and claim that your 
theory is not authorized by the teachings of the New 
Testament, and is therefore in violation of the laws of 
high heaven, and repulsive to all saints who have been 
educated in the school of heaven. But how was it pos- 
sible for the writers of the Old and New Testaments to 
have known the exigencies of the religion of the present 
age? It might have answered every purpose in their 
day, but positively fails to meet the indications of the 
nineteenth century. 

Much of what they have written is left in such a form 
that it has a tendency to confuse instead of enlighten 
my missionaries as to the proper means to be used in 
the conversion and salvation of the people of the present 
age. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 191 

These Old Baptists may contend that the Old and New 
Testament Scriptures are exactly in harmony, and that 
they were intended to govern all the saints, and that 
they are indeed their monitor or guide, and will be a com- 
pass to all regenerated saints, from the commencement 
to the end of time ; and that any person or persons, or 
corporation of Christians, or so-called Christians, who 
transcend or fall short of their prescribed metes and 
bounds, are guilty of a trespass against the laws of high 
heaven, and are therefore subjects of punishment, as 
prescribed by the New Testament. The Christian who 
is a violator of the law is punished by afflictions in many 
ways, and repentance, but is finally saved through the 
atonement and blood of Jesus Christ. The so-called 
Christian who has never been regenerated and born 
again is also punished with many trials and afflictions, 
but without that godly sorrow or repentance that need- 
eth not to be repented of, and are lost or banished 
from the peaceful presence of God. They will further 
tell you that the pattern is left upon record, from the 
first of Genesis to the last of Eeveiation, and that the 
pattern forbids the Christian or man ol God from doing 
anything in a church capacity, or otherwise in the ser- 
vice of God, that is not specified in the word of God, but 
commands all the regenerated people of God to do all 
that is written in the New Testament, as a church ordin- 
ance or Christian duty. They will commence with Abra- 
ham, and defy you to prove that Abraham ever went be- 
yond the limits of the Lord. They then refer you to 



192 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Moses, who obeyed the Lord and stopped, except on one 
occasion, when he spoke in anger to the children of 
Israel, for which he was severely punished. Noah did pre- 
cisely as God commanded in building the ark, and went 
no further. They will carry you to all the old partri- 
archs, and defy you to prove that they ever went fur- 
ther than the Lord commanded, without receiving the 
chastisement annexed to disobedience. They will then 
call your attention to the old prophets, to wit, Isaiah, 
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, etc., and ask you for heaven's 
sake to show them where it is upon record that they 
wrote or did anything by way of serving God, only as 
they received instructions from the angel of the Lord, 
and then waited patiently for another order from God. 
They will tell you that Jonah refused to obey the com- 
mands of God, and for a punishment he was caused to 
be swallowed by a whale, and lay in the belly of hell for 
three days, and was vomited up on dry land, and was 
made willing, even anxious, to obey the Lord by preach- 
ing to the Ninevites. They will refer you to the fifteenth " 
chapter of 1st Samuel, where Samuel was sent by the 
Lord to Saul, who was to be anointed king over Israel, 
saying to Saul, " Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly 
destroy all that they have, and spare them not ; but 
slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and 
sheep, camel and ass." — I Samuel xv. 3. And when 
Saul returned to Samuel he reported, " I have performed 
the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What 
meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 193 

the lowing of the oxen which I hear ? " — I Samuel xv. 
13, 14. Saul rendered an excuse, and said that these fat 
animals were brought along by the people, and were not 
destroyed, that they might be sacrificed to the Lord. And 
for Saul's disobedience the kingdom of Israel was rent 
from him, and was given to one of his neighbors, who 
was more obedient to the commands of the Lord. They 
will also tell you that these fat animals that were brought 
along, in violation of the commands of the Lord, under 
the pretence of a sacrifice to the Lord, that were to have 
been utterly destroyed by Saul, are a type of the fat things 
that my missionaries carry with them, under the pre- 
tence of sacrificing them to the Lord. And instead of 
their idols being named oxen, sheep, camels, asses, etc., 
they are called fat salaries, foreign missions, home mis- 
sions, executive committees, publishing societies, theo- 
logical schools, Sunday schools, together with all the 
other institutions and commandments of men that are 
taught for doctrines, which the Lord has commanded 
shall be utterly destroyed. " Touch not, taste not, han- 
dle not ; which all are to perish with the using ; after 
the commandments and doctrines of man." — Col. ii. 21, 
22. "But in vain they do worship me, teaching for 
doctrines the commandments of men." — Mat. xv. 9. And 
that for carrying these fat things, and teaching these 
false doctrines, my missionaries shall be rent from the 
kingdom of Israel, (the church) as was Saul. And that 
the lowing of the oxen is a type of the bellowing of the 
nobles of my missionaries for more money to be sacri- 



194 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

ficed to the Lord in the building up of giant religious 
monopolies, in the shape of orphan homes, sectarian 
schools, theological schools, etc., of which they them- 
selves are to be the instructors ; who tell you that their 
lives and all their energies shall be spent in said institu- 
tions, for the salvation of the people and their posterity, 
that would otherwise be lost. And that the bleating of 
the sheep typifies the more congenial voice of the smaller 
fry of my missionaries, in their importunities to the 
laity and friends for more means and instrumentalities 
to be offered as a sacrifice to the Lord to save the Amale- 
kites (heathen) from endless perdition, whom the Lord 
has commanded that they shall be utterly destroyed. 

They will then refer you to the tenth chapter of 
Jeremiah and the sixth chapter of Amos, and con- 
demn all your instrumental church music, and accuse 
you of serving your God mechanically, instead of fol- 
lowing the pattern of serving God in spirit, by sing- 
ing songs of praise with the spirit and with the under- 
standing. Your decorated altars and organs they will 
call idols, and they will prove that the use that you make 
of them is typified in the Scriptures as idolatrous wor- 
ship, and that the true Israel of God has ever received 
punishment when they presumed to transcend the pattern 
of God in their zeal to gratify the arrogance of human 
pride. 

They will then carry you to the book of Exodus, and 
show you where God caused the children of Israel to 
borrow the jewels of the Egyptians, which jewels they 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 195 

did not return to their owners, and that God suffered the 
Israelites to carry the jewels across the Eed Sea, that He 
might punish them with their borrowed jewels, when 
they presumed to disobey the commands of Moses, who 
received instruction from God. And the children of Is- 
rael murmured against Moses, "And Aaron said unto 
them, Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears 
of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters and 
bring them unto me." — Exodus xxxii. 2. And when 
Aaron had made the jewels into a molten calf, and pre- 
pared an altar, they worshiped before the idols, and call- 
ed them the gods of Israel. And for a punishment G-od 
caused Moses to burn the calf and grind it into powder ; 
and he strewed it upon the water, and made the children 
of Israel drink of it. And that this punishment upon 
national Israel for their disobedience to the commands 
of God as a nation, through the medium of Moses, is a 
type of the punishment of spiritual Israel (church) when 
she disobeys the mandates of heaven, through the med- 
ium of Jesus Christ, who is the antitype of Moses. And 
that all the true Israel of Christ's spiritual kingdom who 
have at any time connected themselves with the Anti- 
christian kingdoms (false churches), who by affiliating 
with those kingdoms are bidding them God-speed by par- 
taking of their evil deeds, has and will ultimately have 
to drink deep of the bitter waters that are poisoned with 
the powdered jewels that they have borrowed of the na- 
tions of Antichrist, (false churches.) After reciting 
many other allegories and examples of punishment upon 



196 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

national Israel for disobedience to the commands of God, 
prefiguring the punishment of spiritual Israel for their 
disobedience to the mandates of heaven, they will carry 
you to the New Testament, (which is a complete testi- 
mony of the fulfillment of the prophecies and forerun- 
ners in the old Testament,) and defy you before high 
heaven to show them where it is upon record in the 
sacred volume of truth that the apostles or the disciples 
of Jesus Christ ever transcended or fell short of the pre- 
scribed commands of the great Captain of their eternal 
salvation, without receiving the punishment annexed to 
their disobedience ; but in all things did precisely as com- 
manded by the King of kings, before their work was re- 
ceived and accepted by the great Kedeemer of souls. 

They will tell you that in the fourth chapter of St. 
Matthew, where the devil was trying to tempt Jesus, 
"Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt 
not tempt the Lord thy God." (Claiming himself as the 
devil's God ; and, indeed, the devils in hell are subject 
to his commands, and obey him.) " Again, the devil 
taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and 
showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the 
glory of them, and said unto him, All these things will 
I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then 
said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan ; for it is 
written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him 
only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him ; and 
behold, angels came and ministered unto him." But 
that my missionaries have accepted the propositions of 









SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 197 

the devil, and have affiliated with the kingdoms of this 
world, (false churches and other institutions that are not 
authorized by Jesus Christ) and are actually worshiping 
the grandeur, arrogance and wealth of these kingdoms, 
more than the church or pattern of Jesus Christ, and 
are destitute of that Christian grace or fortitude that 
would say, "Get thee hence, Satan;" and are running 
after other gods, ignoring the command of high heaven, 
" Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only 
shalt thou serve." 

They further teach that my missionaries bind heavy 
burdens upon the people, and refer you to the following 
Scripture, "For they bind heavy burdens and grievous 
to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders ; but they 
themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 
But all of their works they do to be seen of men : they 
make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders 
of their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at 
feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues." — St. Mat. 
xxiii. 4, 7. 

They further teach that the Old School or Primitive 
Baptists are the only organized body of saints under the 
canopy of heaven that follow the precise pattern of 
Jesus Christ, without any variableness or shadow of 
turning, in all of the church ordinances and Christian 
duties, as prescribed in the New Testament Scriptures, 
without any additions or diminutions of so-called church 
ordinances and Christian duties. "Go ye, therefore, 
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 



198 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teach- 
ing them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you ; and lo, I am with you always, even unto 
the end of the world. Amen. 1 ' — Mat. xxviii. 19, 20. 

And that there is no inducement that could be offered 
that would cause them to observe anything as an auxili- 
ary to assist Christ in the designs of his gospel, or to 
further the accomplishment of the great Author of their 
eternal salvation. And should they presume to do so, 
that they would be doing violence to the commands of 
high heaven ; for they are admonished in the 18th and 
19th verses of the last chapter of Eevelation, neither to, 
add to nor take from under a heavy penalty. They 
must therefore preach truth and expose error. Preach 
the gospel of Jesus Christ and nothing else. Preach 
Jesus Christ and him crucified, and nothing more. 
Preach repentance to sinners, and stop. Baptize those 
who believe the gospel of Jesus Christ ; who believe that 
Jesus shed his blood especially for those whom the 
Father gave him before the world began, and no one 
else. Receiving as candidates for baptism those who 
can give a satisfactory reason of their hope in Christ 
Jesus, and no one else. 

Rejecting all who are not willing to submit to the ordi- 
nance of baptism by immersion, as taught by Jesus 
Christ. Requiring all to be baptized by a regularly or- 
dained minister of the gospel, and rejecting the baptism 
of all so-called ministers of the gospel who are in disorder 
by affiliating with the kingdom of Antichrist, (false 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 199 

churches and the institutions of the world.) Also requir- 
ing all the saints who are in the fellowship of the church 
to partake of the Lord's supper, wash the saints' feet, 
look after the poor of the flock, and care for the necessi- 
ties of their pastor in a proper way. Sing hymns of 
praise to God, and in their prayers thank God for His 
many blessings and mercies that He has bestowed upon 
them, and implore Him for a continuation of the same, 
together with all things that He has enjoined upon them 
to pray for ; and that His will be done in all things, and 
not theirs ; and that it would be mockery in the sight of 
God for them to dictate to God what they would have 
Him do for them, as do my missionaries. And that the 
commandment of Jesus Christ and his apostles to go 
and preach the gospel, forbids them from preaching any 
other doctrine than the doctrine of salvation by grace, 
independent of all the auxiliaries that have ever been in- 
stituted by the devices of men or devils. " For by grace 
are ye saved, through faith ; and that not of yourselves ; 
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should 
boast."— Eph. ii. 8, 9. 

"But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach 
any other gospel unto you than that which we have 
preached unto you, let him be accursed." — Gal. i. 8. 

These Old Baptists will actually mock you, by telling 
you that you do not believe the Scriptures, and that if 
you did you would be ashamed to adopt their teachings, 
and that you are too vain to be governed by their ordin- 
ances and duties ; and that many of you are too dignified 



200 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

to reproach the elegance of your raising by submitting 
to the lowliness of the examples and precepts of Jesus 
Christ's teachings ; and that you are compelled to per- 
vert the meaning of the Scriptures to accommodate your 
devices in evading the ordinances and duties as pre- 
scribed by Jesus Christ and his apostles. And that if 
this was not the case, and you were actually children of 
God's mercy and grace, you would not be willing to per- 
vert the Scriptures, but would be willing, yea, anxious, 
to go down into the water, even before a multitude, and 
be buried with Christ in baptism, according to the pat- 
tern of Jesus Christ. You would also be willing to 
humble yourselves in the very dust of humility, and lay 
aside your garments, and gird yourselves with a towel, 
and wash the saints' feet, as exemplified by Jesus Christ 
and his apostles, as well as to partake of the emblems 
of his broken body and spilt blood. " Whosoever 
therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words, in this 
adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the 
Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of 
his Father with the holy angels." — Mark viii. 38. 

" And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came 
from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in 
Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, 
he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove 
descending upon him."— Mark i. 9, 10. " Know ye not 
that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ 
were baptized into his death ? Therefore we are buried 
with him by baptism into death ; that like as Christ was 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 201 

raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even 
so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we 
have been planted together in the likeness of his death, 
we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." — 
Kom. vi. 3, 5. " Buried with him in baptism, wherein 
also ye are risen with him through the faith of the oper- 
ation of God, who hath raised him from the dead."— 
Col. ii. 12. " And he commanded the chariot to stand 
still : and they went down both into the water, both 
Philip and the eunuch ; and he baptized him." — Acts 
viii. 38. 

They will tell you that there is no intellect that is so 
tardy or bounding, who has been sufficiently humiliated 
in their travail from nature to grace, whose human pride 
has been killed to the common devices of human ingen- 
uity, who does not know that the above quotations were 
exemplified in baptism by immersion. And that it 
would have been absurdly miraculous, and the idea 
ridiculous, for Jesus to have come to John and demanded 
baptism at his hands in the river Jordan, when sprink- 
ling or pouring would have been equally valid ; and if 
so, water could have been procured for such purposes at 
any of the common watering places of f amilies or from 
the small tributaries by the wayside. But it seems to 
have required much water ; hence, how foolish it would 
have been for Jesus to have gone down into a river of 
water to get such a pittance of water as is required in 
sprinkling and pouring. "Then cometh Jesus from 
Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But 



202 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of 
thee, and comest thou to me ? And Jesus answering, 
said unto him, Suffer it to be so now ; for thus it becom- 
eth us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. 
And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway 
out of the water {not from the water) ; and, lo, the heav- 
ens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God 
descending like a dove, and lighting upon him." — Mat. 
hi. 13, 17. 

And that the humble saint of God must be buried with 
Him in baptism, planted with Him, together with the 
likeness of His death ; and that this baptism, burying or 
planting, is a type of His death, burial and resurrection; 
and that it is impossible for sprinkling or pouring to be 
baptism, for the subject of baptism cannot be buried or 
planted by this process, but must be immersed, in order 
to correspond with the antitype. And that they cannot 
feel themselves to be baptized until they have been buried 
in baptism after the pattern of Christ. And that Jesus 
Christ and Paul testify of but one baptism. " One Lord, 
one faith, one baptism." — Eph. iv. 5. But that many of 
my missionaries testify of three modes of baptism ; 
sprinkling, pouring and immersion ; and they claim them 
all as the pattern of Jesus Christ. This being the case, 
Jesus was baptized three times, of which we have no re- 
cord. And that Jesus testified to Mcodemus, " Except 
a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he camiot enter 
into the kingdom of God." — John iii. 5. And they ren- 
der it thus : That being born of the Spirit of God is an 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 203 

evidence to the child of God, of their eternal union with 
Christ. " He that belie veth on the Son of God hath the 
witness in himself. " — I John v. 10. Hence this new man 
has a bright hope and promise of eternal life. " Who- 
soever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for His seed 
remaineth in him ; and he cannot sin, because he is born 
of God." — I John hi. 9. But that being " born of water," 
independent of being " born of the Spirit," has nothing 
to do with eternal life, but is the door "into the king- 
dom of God," which is Christ's church militant. " The 
like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save 
us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but 
the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ." — I Pet. hi. 21. And that 
it is impossible to be born without you are first enveloped 
in the substance out of which you are born. And as 
baptism is one of the ordinances of Christ's kingdom, 
(church,) it is obligatory upon every regenerated child of 
grace to be buried with Christ in baptism, by a legal ad- 
ministrator, before they can possibly claim church fel- 
lowship with the baptized believers in Christ's church ; 
and that one of the strongest evidences of being a fol- 
lower and believer in Christ's kingdom is, "If ye love 
me, keep my commandments." — John xiv. 15. And the 
plain inference is that you must not, in a church sense, 
keep any other commandments. "But in vain they do 
worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments 
of men." — Mat. xv. 9. 

After bringing forth all this array of testimony in favor 



204 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

of immersion being the only authorized mode of baptism, 
and that Jesus and his apostles taught no other mode, 
and that no ordained minister of Christ's kingdom dare 
practice or receive any other, without violating one of 
the ordinances of high heaven, for which a just punish- 
ment would inevitably follow, and result in the mortifi- 
cation and humiliation of the people of God, they will 
then mock you by asking you for heaven's sake to show 
them the chapter and verse in the New Testament where 
sprinkling or pouring was practiced or recognized by 
Jesus or any of his apostles as gospel baptism, or the door 
into Christ's kingdom or church ; but that in every in- 
stance where sprinkling or pouring is mentioned in the 
New Testament it typifies or illustrates something that 
is foreign to gospel baptism. They will positively chal- 
lenge our system of baptizing infants, when it is patent 
to every intelligent thinker that if there are any persons 
under the canopy of heaven who are in that state of 
innocency arid freedom from sin and the common 
vices that are incident to riper years, which evils the 
law and church requires total abstinence to secure 
eternal salvation, it is surely the infant, of whom Jesus 
hath said that the kingdom of heaven is composed ; 
and then to deny them the right of baptism, is absurd and 
ridiculous ; for such innocency is the composition and 
element of heaven, and is so regarded by Jesus himself. 
' 4 Then were there brought unto him little children, 
that he should put his hands on them, and pray ; and 
the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, suffer little 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 205 

children, and forbid them not, to come unto me ; for of 
such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands 
on them, and departed thence." — Mat. xix. 13, 16. But 
these Old Baptists will defy you to show them the chap- 
ter and verse where Jesus or any of his apostles ever 
baptized one of them, and are presumptuous enough to 
undertake to prove that our interpretations of these 
Scriptures are unwarranted perversions of the word of 
God, and that the true meaning of them is foreign to 
baptism. They will undertake to prove that these little 
children that Jesus exhibits in these Scriptures are a 
type of the regenerated children of God, who have been 
humiliated in their travail from nature to grace ; and have 
been made by the mighty influence of the Holy Spirit to 
become as helpless and dependent upon Jesus for suc- 
cor and help at a time of need when the poor child of 
God had exhausted all his own strength, and had to give 
up all hope of salvation from his own efforts, and had 
fallen prostrate at the feet of Jesus, never to rise again 
in his own strength, becoming as helpless and depend- 
ent upon Jesus as the infant is upon its natural mother 
or nurses for natural sustenance ; and that an infant is 
the most helpless and dependent of all others of the 
animal species, and has to be raised by its natural mother 
or nurses to its mother's breast to receive natural food ; 
and that in like manner the heaven-born child is equally 
helpless and dependent upon Jesus and his church for 
spiritual food, and has to be raised by Jesus in the par- 
don of his sins, and given that spiritual nourishment 



206 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

through the medium of the church aud her servants, 
(ministers,) independent of the effort of the new born 
babe of Christ ; which spiritual food is necessary to the 
full development of spiritual manhood ; and that unless 
you become thus like little children, you cannot enter 
the kingdom. ' % And Jesus called a little child unto him, 
and set him in the midst of them, and said, verily I say 
unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little 
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little 
child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.*' — 
Mat. xviii. 2, 5. " Whosoever shall not receive the king- 
dom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." 
Mark x. 15. 

But you know that we baptize infants in lieu of circum- 
cision, and that circumcision was instituted by Abraham 
and Moses, under the auspices of God ; and that Moses 
was a type of Christ ; and that when Christ came into 
the world he fulfilled the law of Moses, and set up a new 
dispensation, and instituted baptism as the antitype of 
circumcision ; and we dare not neglect the baptism of 
our infants, without hazarding their eternal salvation ; 
because circumcision was positively enjoined upon all 
Israel, who was at that time the favored people of God, 
and was a type of His church. And we feel under equal 
obligations to christen or initiate our children into his 
church, by applying to them the holy ordinance of bap- 
tism, leaving the visible marks of Christ's church upon 
them, as was left upon the national babes of Israel, in 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 207 

the circumcision of the Jews, under the law of Moses. 
But these Old Baptists will ask you, in the name of 
heaven's God, why do you baptize female infants or 
female adults ; when there is not a verse or chapter in 
the Bible that would even feign to establish the incon- 
sistency of female circumcision ? And therefore your 
presumed antitype for circumcision is as false as its 
founders are inconsistent. But national Israel was really 
a type of spiritual Israel. "For they are not all Israel 
which are of Israel." — Rom. ix. 6. Showing conclus- 
ively that they did not all belong to spiritual Israel that 
were circumcised and belonged to national Israel ; but 
that circumcision was a national mark put upon them to 
distinguish them from other nations, and prevent them 
from marrying, amalgamating, or affiliating with other 
nations, as prescribed by God to the patriarchs and 
Moses his law-giver, and has nothing to do with gospel 
baptism. And that since the coming of Christ the anti- 
type of this national mark of circumcision is and will be 
written in the hearts of all spiritual Israel, and is mani- 
fested in their daily walk and godly conversation, and is 
as patent to the man of God as was the mark of circum- 
cision to the law givers of national Israel. "For he is 
not a Jew which is one outwardly ; neither is that cir- 
cumcision which is outward in the flesh ; but he is a Jew 
which is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the 
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter ; whose praise 
is not of men, but of God."— Rom. ii. 28, 29. And that 
in a gospel or church sense they are commanded by 



208 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW, 

Jesus Christ and his apostles not to marry, amalgamate, 
nor affiliate with any other nations, (false churches and 
other institutions of men not authorized by God,) but to 
hold themselves aloft to any of the ordinances of men 
that are not specifically authorized in the word of God, 
lest they become partakers of their evil deeds. ' ' If there 
come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive 
him not into your house neither bid him God speed ; for 
he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil 
deeds." — II John 10, 11. In bidding them God speed 
they subject themselves to the punishment that would 
be inflicted by the law governing the church or spiritual 
Israel, as typified by the punishment of those who 
violated the law of national Israel. 

They will assert to you that infants are not subjects of 
baptism ; and that baptism hinges upon belief ; and 
belief hinges upon testimony ; and that faith is the result 
of belief ; and that the infant is not capacitated to receive 
testimony and belief; neither can they act faith, and there- 
fore cannot be received into the church upon the testimony 
required of the saints. ' 'But sanctify the Lord God in your 
hearts; and be ready always to give an answer to every 
man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, 
with meekness and fear. "—I Pet. iii. 15. And that infants 
cannot do this, and that the sprinkling and pouring, as 
instituted for baptism, and the manner of receiving in- 
fants into the church, is all mockery, not being author- 
ized by God. "And He said unto them, Go ye into all 
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 209 

that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that 
believeth not shall be damned.'' — Markxvi. 15, 16. They 
contend that these apostles did go into all the then in- 
habited world, and preached the gospel to every creature. 
And that all to whom G-od gave spiritual ears, spiritual 
eyes and a circumcised spiritual heart, did believe, and 
were baptized by immersion into the church of Jesus 
Christ. And that it is not upon record where the apostles 
baptized any except those who did believe. And that 
infants were wholly incompetent to receive the testimony 
required to believe. And that the preaching of the 
apostles was only a testimony or witness to those who 
did believe after they had received the testimony of be- 
lief through the operation of the Spirit, giving them 
spiritual discernment, so that they could believe and be 
baptized according to the command given by the Savior ; 
and therefore infants are excluded from gospel baptism. 
" He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but 
he that believeth not shall be damned." — Mark xvi. 16. 
And, also, that even baptism is " not the putting away 
of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good con- 
science toward God." Therefore there is no eternal sal- 
vation in baptism, consequently they say that our theory 
would damn or send to endless perdition all infants who 
have not arrived at the age of moral accountability. 
And that we are compelled, according to these Scriptures, 
to damn them for unbelief , because they are incompetent 
to believe, and that baptism cannot secure for them eter- 
nal salvation. And that the command to preach the 



210 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

gospel to every creature was not designed to be heard by 
natural infants, nor was it designed to be heard in a 
gospel sense by larger children nor adults, except those 
to whom God has given spiritual discernment. And 
therefore my missionaries must be wanting in that spirit- 
ual discernment that is peculiar to the saints of God. 
They say that you have accused them of teaching that 
there are infants in hell not a span long ; and they con- 
tend that the accusation is strictly false, and that the 
Old Baptists are the only organized body of saints under 
the heavens that preach a positive infant salvation. They 
say that the infant was saved in the covenant of grace 
between the Father and the Son before the world began, 
and upon the same principle of God's amazing mercy as 
was the covenanted adult. And that God has quit sav- 
ing and damning souls thousands of years ago, and that 
all who are saved or lost were saved or lost in the coven- 
ant between the Father and Son before the world was. 
And all the lost have been lost from the commence- 
ment of time, and that all the saved have been saved 
from the commencement of time ; and that there are no 
times with God, but is ever to-day with Him. "But, 
beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day 
is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand 
years as one day." — II Pet. hi. 8. And that all things, 
Present, past and future, were as much in open view to 
God at the commencement of time as they are to-day, or 
as they will be at the final consummation of all things. 
" Remember the former things of old; for I am God, 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 211 

and there is none else ; I am God, and there is none like 
me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from 
ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, 
my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." — 
Is. xlvi. 9, 10. 

Consequently He is not at present on any baby- saving 
expedition, nor is He losing babies for want of belief or 
baptism, but is manifesting His love and mercy toward 
them all along through time, as it seemeth good unto 
Him, and is taking them home to Himself at the time of 
His own good pleasure. But that they believe that they 
are regenerated in the hour and article of death ; but 
they do not know this, it being one of the secrets known 
to God. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our 
God ; but those things which are revealed belong unto us 
and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words 
of this law." — Deut. xxix. 29. But that there is one 
thing that they do know ; that there is one case put 
upon record where there was one infant who, owing to 
a powerful transition, leaped for joy in his mother's 
womb. "And it came to pass that when Elizabeth 
heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her 
womb ; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost ; 
and she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed 
art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy 
womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of 
my Lord should come to me ? For, lo, as soon as the 
voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe 
leaped in my womb for joy." — Luke i. 41, 45. They say 



21*2 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

that they cannot see why, if God would communicate 
His Spirit to a babe in foetal life, that He should not be- 
stow the same blessing upon babes in infantile life. They 
further contend that it cannot be proven from Bible testi- 
mony, that one of the heirs of perdition, one whom the 
Father did not covenant with his Son to give him, ever 
died in infancy, but that the command was given that 
the tares should not be plucked up, lest the wheat might 
be destroyed ; but they were to remain with the wheat 
until harvest, and were not to be destroyed in infancy : 
but at maturity they were to be gathered* and burned. 

" The field is the world : the good seed are the children 
of the kingdom : but the tares are the children of the 
wicked one." — Mat. xiii. 38. But you well know, my 
friends, that our motto is, Not to be beaten ; and if we 
could ever succeed in convincing the youths of this, or 
even the next generation, that our system of baptizing 
infants is correct, and that infants are really subjects of 
gospel baptism, and induce all orthodox churches to adopt 
our system, we would then have all the infants of each 
generation baptized at eight days old, according to the 
pattern of circumcision, of which baptism is the anti- 
type. We would then wipe out this old fogy believer's 
baptism, the result of which would be to annihilate their 
inconsistencies, and their present Bible, as translated by 
King James. We would then be able to establish by 
vote at the ballot box laws that would sustain our 
Christian institutions and support our ministry. 

Because we would all see eye to eye, and understand 



SUPPOSED INTER VIE W. 213 

the Scriptures alike, and would have no trouble in legal- 
izing our local option and prohibition laws ; we could 
impose our Sunday school literature and catechisms upon 
all the children alike, and force them and their refractory 
parents to accept our system of religion. And, in fact, 
all our Christian and benevolent institutions could be 
legalized, of which institutions the present Bible is silent 
upon ; in consequence of which these Old Baptists are 
ever harping upon our innovations upon primitive doc- 
trine. 

" Then they that gladly received His word were bap- 
tized ; and the same day there were added unto them 
about three thousand souls." — Acts ii. 41. Xow, my 
friends, all intelligent people know that it would have 
been impossible for Peter to have baptized three thou- 
sand souls by immersion in one day, and that of necessity 
he was compelled to have sprinkled the water upon them 
in groups, to have accomplished such a wonderful work 
in so short a time. We will suppose, for the sake of 
reason and argument, that Peter did baptize them by im- 
mersion, and that he used twelve hours in the day ; he 
would have baptized one about every fourth of a minute; 
and if he used the twenty four hours in baptizing them, 
he baptized one about every half minute ; and you know 
that it requires more time than this to repeat the shortest 
ceremony that could be used in a legal gospel baptism; 
Besides this, Peter would not have had time to obey any 
of the laws of health, and his physical system would have 
completely given way for want of rest and nourishment. 



21-1 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

But these Old Baptists will tell you that the eleven 
apostles were there, (Judas having abandoned them in the 
betrayal of the Lord,) all of whom were legal adminis- 
trators of the ordinance of baptism, and were actively 
engaged in the work of the ministry. And should they 
have used twelve hours in the day, they would have bap- 
tized about two hundred and seventy-two persons each, 
and would have consumed about two and three-fourths 
minutes with each. And if they had used twenty-four 
hours, they would have baptized one about every five 
and a half minutes. See Luke x. 1 . And you will see that 
the Lord appointed seventy others and clothed them with 
the same authority. And should they, or any part of 
them, have been present, it would have made the task 
much lighter, and no person's health o.r constitution 
Wi >ald have been injured, and much time would have 
been given for preaching and exhortation. After all this 
systematic reasoning and mathematical research, they 
will tell you that those three thousand souls that were 
added to the disciples on that memorable occasion were 
not necessarily compelled to have been baptized on the 
day of their belief or conversion, and that the text does 
not say that they were baptized on that same day, but 
that they were added to the disciples, by gladly receiving 
Peter's words ; and that baptism could have easily been 
deferred until another time, giving Peter ample opportun- 
ity to have baptized all of them, without violating any 
of the laws of health. But you know that Jesus Christ 
would not have instituted such indecencies as immersion 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 215 

and feet washing, as church ordinances and Christian 
duties, and impose it upon the female members of his 
church, without making some provision for a substitute 
under certain circumstances. Hence the necessity of 
sprinkling timid females and children, for baptism, and 
washing the saints' feet at private houses. Baptism by 
immersion and feet washing before the multitude would 
not only jeopardize their health, but would reflect upon 
their refinement. To say the least of it, the practice 
would be very humiliating to their refinement and pride, 
if they had been well raised and educated in the higher 
circles of life. There are but few elegantly refined ladies 
who would respect the testimony of Jesus Christ if it 
could be proven beyond cavil that he did institute such 
ridiculous practices as these, and enjoin them upon the 
female members of his church. 

For the sake of argument, we will admit that Jesus 
did institute feet washing, and that he did enjoin it upon 
his disciples. Do you not know that he would have had 
more respect for females than to have imposed such in- 
decent duties upon them before the multitudes, when the 
same act of kindness could have been bestowed upon the 
poor, afflicted saints at any of their private houses ? We 
could not presume to accuse Jesus of introducing any 
such humiliating practices. In the name of common 
sense, what good could it possibly do to humiliate Chris- 
tians in this way when these Old Baptists themselves 
admit that there is no eternal life in either of these vul- 
gar practices ? And I cannot believe that Jesus actually 



216 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

requires any such things of females. You will now 
please excuse me for referring you to the Scriptures, and 
the arguments of these Old Baptists, for they propose to 
" Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." — I 
Thes. v. 21. After the apostles had partaken with Jesus 
of the Lord's supper, ' ' He riseth from supper, and laid 
aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself . 
After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to 
wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel 
wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon 
Peter : and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash 
my feet ? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do 
thou knowest not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter. 
Peter saith unto him, thou shalt never wash my feet. 
Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no 
part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my 
feet only, but also my hands and my head." — John xiii. 
4, 10. "If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed 
your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For 
I have given you an example, that ye should do as I 
have done to you." — John xiii. 14, 15. " If ye know these 
things, happy are ye if ye do them." — John xiii. 17. 
While they contend that these examples given to them 
by Jesus himself, have nothing to do with their eternal 
salvation and spiritual union with Christ, and are there- 
fore not essential to their eternal salvation, but that the 
adoption of them in Christ's church is essential to Chris- 
tian duty, and that the salvation of Christ's church mil- 
itant is greatly dependent upon them, in that of exem- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 217 

plifying the examples of Jesus himself, thereby preserv- 
ing the precise pattern of Jesus, without any additions 
or diminutions, so that his church may be preserved un- 
sullied from all the devices and traditions of men or 
devils ; and that when his true disciples have done this, 
they have a conscience that is void of offence toward 
God ; and should they at any time fail to see the real im- 
port of the ordinance or duty, they can but do as did 
Peter, when the Lord told him, ' 'What I do thou knowest 
not now, but thou shalt know hereafter ; " and therefore 
with patience wait for knowledge ; nevertheless they 
comply with the example, as Jesus bids you, it being es- 
sential to Christian duty and church preservation ; and 
that they must emphatically do this as true followers of 
Christ, regardless of all the humilition of their natural 
pride or worldly aspirations. " For I have given you an 
example, that ye should do as I have done to you." And, 
" If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 
Now, sirs, these Old Baptists will actually contend 
that Jesus imposes these humiliating church ordinances 
and Christian duties upon his disciples, to humble them 
and kill them to the love of their human pride, boastful 
devices and worldly aspirations ; and that in their trans- 
ition from nature to grace he makes them loathe them- 
selves on account of their human pride and unworthi- 
ness, because of the spirit of the flesh waging war upon 
the Spirit of Christ, in consequence of which the spirit 
of the flesh revolts at a compliance with his church ordi- 
nances and Christian duties. 



218 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

If these Old Baptists could only prove that there were 
others of the disciples present besides the twelve apostles 
who engaged in feet washing with Jesus, they would 
most assuredly have a better showing for their practice. 
But you well know that they cannot do this ; neither 
can they show that there were females engaged in it 
with Jesus. Therefore we can deride them, by defying 
them to prove that there were any who participated in 
feet washing except Jesus and the twelve apostles, and 
that there was no command given for the continuance 
or preservation of feet washing as one of the duties of 
the church. But they will tell you that your idea of 
none participating except Jesus and the twelve apostles 
is strictly inferential. For in the example set by the 
Savior he expressly says that he commenced washing 
the disciples' feet, and does not say that he commenced 
washing the apostles' feet ; and that he finally approach- 
eel Peter, and that Peter was so humiliated with such an 
act of lowliness on the part of his Lord that he told him, 
" Thou shalt never wash my feet." But when the Sav- 
ior told him that if he did not wash him he could have 
no part with him, Peter being so enthused in the minis- 
try with the love of God in his heart, that rather than 
be excluded from the ministry and his apostleship, he 
cried out, "Not my feet only, but my hands and my 
head." And that in further proof of the practice having 
been transmitted to the church, and that males and 
females all participated in it, and that it was obligatory 
upon all the saints who are in the fellowship of the 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 219 

church, they will refer you to the following Scriptures, 
where the widow's age and aptness to do the things per- 
taining to godliness, are to be considered before she can be 
recognized as one of the counselors of Christ's church ; 
but the younger widows are exempt from the council of 
the church officers, although they may be members in 
good standing. "But the younger widows refuse; for 
when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, 
they will marry." — I Tim. v. 11. And that sisters who 
have husbands, are to be governed by their husbands, 
and their husband's voice is to be heard in the church's 
council, and they are to learn of their husbands at home. 
" And if they will learn anything, let them ask their 
husbands at home ; for it is a shame for women to speak 
in the church." — I Cor. xiv. 35. And that the widow 
who is presumed to be of sufficient firmness to belong to 
the council, must be threescore years old, and at that age 
she would not be apt to reject the ordinances and duties 
of Christ's church, to partake of the superfluities of the 
world. "Let not a widow be taken into the number 
under threescore years old, having been the wife of one 
man ; well reported of for good works ; if she have 
brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she 
have washed the saints' feets, if she have relieved the 
afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good 
work."— I Tim. v. 9, 10. 

Now, sirs, they claim that the above quotation of 
itself is sufficient testimony to prove that all the saints, 
both male and female, are positively under obligations 



220 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

as followers of Christ to engage in feet washing, when 
ordered by the church of their membership. And that 
there is no denying the fact, without openly declaring 
your infidelity as non-believers of the Word of God. 

Then in confirmation of all the facts that they claim 
to have proven, they will assert to you that there is not 
an instance upon record, where the original disciples re- 
fused to obey every ordinance and Christian duty as pre- 
scribed by Jesus Christ or any of his authorized apostles ; 
but in every instance, when the command was given, 
the disciples obeyed, without adding to or taking from. 
And that they, as the genuine disciples of Jesus Christ, 
are to-day under the same restrictions as were the dis- 
ciples of old, and dare not transcend the limits of their 
Lord by affiliating with any of the auxiliaries and inven- 
tions of men, as instituted by the various orders of my 
missionaries. 

• • For I testify unto every man that heareth the words 
of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto 
these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that 
are written in this book. And if any man shall take 
away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God 
shall take away his part out of the book of life, and ou 
of the holy city, and from the things which are written 
in this book." — Rev. xxii. 18, 19. 

Red & Co.— Our Lord and our God ! Our whole hu- 
man organisms are made to quake with fear and trem- 
bling, and our teeth are made to gnash within our 
months, when we are led to think that peradventure 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. N 221 

these Scriptures may be true, as quoted in the last chap- 
ter of Eevelation. For we know, Lord, that we 
have added many new inventions, and have feigfted to 
take from the words of the prophecies of the Bible many 
of the ordinances and duties, that are left upon record 
by Jesus Christ and his apostles as the ordinances and 
duties of the church. And we have most assuredly, 
God, presumed upon the ignorance of Jesus Christ in 
these additions and diminutions of his holy commands, 
and we have feigned to believe that there were many of 
the institutions and inventions of men that would foster 
to the salvation of souls, and have added these institu- 
tions and commandments of men to our church organi- 
zations, and have regarded them as auxiliaries in the 
accomplishment of the designs of the gospel, which 
things we must acknowledge that we have added, to 
accommodate our convenience and pride, thinking that 
there would be no harm in a small digression, if our mo- 
tives were pure. But in this quotation we are positively 
forbidden to make any of these digressions ; for the God 
of these Old Baptists has said, that if we take from or 
add to the things that are written in the Bible, He would 
take from us our part of the book of life, and out of the 
holy city. 

But if these Old Baptists are correct in rendering the 
true meaning of these verses, we are much relieved in 
our feelings ; because we have always believed that these 
verses positively taught apostasy, and that the whole 
human family had a special interest in the blood of the 



2'2*2 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Lamb, if they would only avail themselves of the means 
of an offered salvation ; and that if they did not, God 
would take away their part out of the Lamb's book of 
life, because they refused to obey the commands of God, 
and be saved upon the broad platform of a universal 
atonement. 

But they render it very differently. They - claim that 
there is no one addressed in the New Testament except 
the church or believers, and that these verses are noth- 
ing more than a warning to the people of God ; and that 
if members of the church should amalgamate or affiliate 
with any of the devices or institutions of the world, the 
Word of God would take their names from the church 
book, and put them out of the holy city (church), and 
that it has no allusion to the Lamb's book of life. And 
that for their disobedience the plagues written in the 
Bible should be added unto them, and that they should 
not be allowed any of the privileges of the church, but 
should be held in disrepute by the church, and made to 
live upon husks in a spiritual sense, while in this rebellion 
against the commands of their Lord. 

In proof of their correctness they will tell you that the 
15th verse of the same chapter says, "For without are 
dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, 
and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a he;" 
warning the people of God to stay within the limits of 
their Lord, and not to become entangled with the devices 
and abominations of the world. And that the next two 
verses say, "I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 223 

uuto you these things in the churches." And that the 
angel did not testify to any except those in the churches. 
"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let 
him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is at hirst 
come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of 
life freely." Now, sir, they say that none are com- 
manded to come to the church or to Christ in these 
verses, except those to whom God had given the spirit 
and the desire to come, by quickening them into spirit- 
ual life, giving them that spiritual ear, spiritual eye and 
circumcised spiritual heart, causing them to thirst after 
righteousness, giving them the will to take the water of 
life 'freely. ''For it is God which worketh in you both 
to will and to do of His own good pleasure." — Phil. ii. 13. 
They further testify that Jerusalem is a type of this 
holy city (church), and claim to receive much comfort 
from the following Scriptures : "For I, saith the Lord, 
will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be 
the glory in the midst of her." — Zech. ii. 5. And that if 
Jerusalem is a type of the church, or holy city, and 
when Jerusalem was threatened that the God of heaven 
stood as a wall of fire around her margin, and His glory 
in her midst, that there would not be much probability 
of the enemy of souls robbing her of any of the ransomed 
or redeemed of the Lord. 

Old Zechariah further proclaims to the church, through 
the instruction of the angel of the Lord, "Ho, ho, come 
forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the 
Lord : for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of 



224 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

the heaven, saith the Lord. Deliver thyself, Zion, 
that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon." — Zech. ii. 
6,7. 

Now, sir, these Old Baptists claim to have Christian 
fellowship for many who are members of our churches 
and institutions, and their ministers proclaim to us from 
the pulpit, with eloquence and arguments that are al- 
most equal to the angels that spoke to the prophets of 
old, and claim that God has spread them to the four 
winds of heaven, and that they inhabit every country 
and nation where God has a people. And in their ex- 
hortations they beg us to come out from the dwellings 
of the daughter of Babylon, and live with the true Israel 
of God, where we can he down in green and fertile pas- 
tures of salvation by grace, and find rest to our poor, 
thirsting souls, and thus evade "the plagues that are 
written in this book. " 

They will then repeat to us David's confidence in God's 
grace: "The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. 
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth 
me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul : He 
leadeth mo in the paths of righteousness for His name's 
sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the 
shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for thou art with 
me : thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou pre- 
parest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies : 
Thou anointest my head with oil : my cup runneth over. 
Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days 
of my life : and I will dwell in the house of the Lord 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 225 

forever." — Ps. xxiii. They say that they can truthfully 
apply the language of David to their own individual 
cases ; bearing further testimony with David before his 
conviction of sin, " Before I was afflicted I went astray ; 
but now have I kept thy word." — Ps. cxix. 67. And 
that your disciples treat them to-day as your disciples of 
old treated old D ( avid. " The proud have had me greatly 
in derision; yet have I not declined from Thy law." — 
Ps. cxix. 51. " The proud have forged a lie against me ; 
but I will keep Thy precepts with my whole heart." — 
Ps. cxix. 69. And that notwithstanding we have lied 
against them, and derided and mocked them, they are 
determined with the help of God not to violate any of 
the commandments and Christian ordinances of their 
Lord. 

These Old Baptists further claim that the inhabitants 
of this holy city constitute the bride or church of Jesus 
Christ, and that they are individually and collectively 
the lawful legatees of the inheritance of eternal life, and 
that they are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus 
Christ, and cannot under legal or spiritual litigation be 
defrauded out of their rightful inheritance. They being 
bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and composing 
his body, having been given to him by his Father before 
the world was, and their names written in the Lamb's 
book of life, that they have a perfect right and title to 
the inheritance of eternal life as bequeathed to them by 
the Father ; and that the heirs of no other kingdom, 
nation or kindred, have any legal or spiritual right to 



226 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

the inheritance bequeathed to the covenanted heirs of 
promise ; neither can the heirs of promise sell or give 
their inheritance to others. " No man can come to me 
except the Father which hath sent me draw him ; and I 
will raise him up at the last day." — John vi. 44. 

They say that Joseph's brethren sold him to the Midi- 
anites for twenty pieces of silver (Gen. xxxvii. 28), which 
sale was a type of the selling of Jesus to his enemies by 
Judas for thirty pieces of silver, which was only about 
half price for a man of his age under the laws of Moses, 
but exemplifies the theory of his enemies, who are 
preaching salvation half by grace, and the other half by 
works ; hence half the price of salvation must be reck- 
oned of works, and the other half must be reckoned of 
grace (see Lev. xxvii.); and that every type and sale of the 
Lord has ever been for selfish ends, and has ever termin- 
ated in the chagrin and humiliation of those who sold 
him, they not being able to make a bona fide title at the 
time of litigation, before the courts of heaven ; tried by 
the law of the King of kings, from whose decision there 
is no appeal. They further say that we are still selling 
Jesus to the enemies of the Old Baptists for different 
prices, ranging from one hundred to two thousand dol- 
lars per annum, in proportion to the ability or ingenuity 
of the salesman in getting a good price, but have ever 
failed to make a bona fide title 3 their patent or title not 
being given by the proper authority, duly authenticated 
and registered upon the parchments of the lawful heirs. 
And that our humiliation and disappointment will result 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 227 

in the building up and comfort of the Old Baptists, as 
exemplified from the days of antiquity to the present. 

No one would presume to deny the benefits that 
Joseph's brethren received in selling him to the Midi- 
anites ; neither would any say that the true Israel of 
God were not benefited in the sale of their Lord ; for it 
behooved Jesus and Joseph to suffer for their brethren. 
Joseph the type, and Jesus the anti-type. " Thus it is 
written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to 
rise from the dead the third day." — Luke xxiv. 46. 
Nevertheless, the wicked intent and crime committed 
by Judas and Joseph's brethren was not mitigated ; but 
the glorious and wonderful works of God were displayed 
in the temporal and eternal salvation of ■ national and 
spiritual Israel. "For where a testament is, there must 
also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a tes- 
tament is of force after men are. dead : otherwise it is of 
no strength at all while the testator liveth." — Heb. ix. 
16, 17. They say that it is evident that a testator is any 
person of sound mind and lawful age who dies and 
leaves a will or testament at death, as to the disposal of 
his effects, and records it in a solemn, authentic in- 
strument in writing, and declares his will as to the dis- 
posal of his estate and effects after his death, together 
with the appointment of lawful executors to his will. 

Should a father die and fail to leave this written testa- 
ment, the laws of the land provide a testament for him, 
and in no case can the heirs of others lawfully claim any 
part of the inheritance ; but in all cases the parties speci- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

fied in the will, or the lawful heirs of the deceased par- 
ents, are the only legatees. They contend that the heirs of 
promise, whom the Father gave the Son before the world 
began, whose names were all written in che Lamb's book 
of life ("I pray for them : I pray not for the world, but 
for them which thou hast given me : for they are thine. 
And all mine are thine, and thine are mine ; and I am 
glorified in them. n — John xvii. 9, 10. i. all fell in Adam, 
who was their federal head, and are therefore partakers 
of his sins. ' * Behold. I was shapen in iniquity ; and in 
sin did my mother conceive me." — Ps. li. 5. " And were 
by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But 
God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith 
He loved us. even when we were dead in sins, hath 
quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are 
saved.*" — Eph. ii. 3, 4, 5. And that the sacrifice or death 
of their natural parents or federal head will not secure 
for them eternal life, but will only secure for them the 
inheritance bequeathed to them from the estate of their 
earthly parents. But that the Father in His wisdom, and 
for the great love wherewith He loved them, even when 
they were dead in sins, had covenanted with and pre- 
pared a donated sacrifice that was above the law, who 
by the will of the Father agreed to come under the law. 
to save or redeem them that the Father gave him, who 
were under the law. This donated sacrifice was compelled 
to be without sin. to satisfy the demands of the law. 
Therefore the sins of his people were imputed to this sin- 
less sacrifice, who knew no sin, and are remembered 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 220 

against them no more forever. He being a donated and 
sinless sacrifice, did not release him from the terrors of 
the law : therefore the demands of the law that were 
against the heirs of promise for then- sins were compelled 
to be executed upon him. But he was not to be sold nor 
bought. But Judas transgressed the law. and sold him 
for thirty pieces of silver, which was the price of the 
bride, the Lamb's wife, as typified by the price of woman 
under the laws of Closes ; and that Judas did not seUhim 
for the price of a man of his age : for under the law of 
Moses he would have got fifty pieces of silver : hence, he 
sold the church and not the man. "And thy estimation 
shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto 
sixty years old : even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels 
of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary. And if it be 
a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels." — 
Lev. xxvii. 3. 1. But that the shedding of his blood was 
a propitiation for the sins of all that the Father gave him. 
Hence every heir of promise stands redeemed from un- 
der the curse of the law. and has a bona fide title to the 
inheritance of eternal life : all demands against said in- 
heritance having been eternally and forever liquidated 
by the blood of the Lamb, which was the everlasting- 
price of redemption. "The Spirit itself beareth wit- 
ness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. 
And if children, then heirs : heirs of G-od. and joint hems 
with Christ." — Rom. viii. 16, 17. "And if ye be Christ's. 
then are ye Abraham's seed and hens according to the 
promise." — Gal. iii. 29. "Wherefore thou art no more 



230 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

a servant, but a son ; and if a son, then an heir of God 
through Christ. n — Gal. iv. 7. " Cast out the bondwoman 
and her son ; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be 
hen with the son of the free woman." — Gal. iv. 30. 
"Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto 
the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, 
confirmed it by an oath ; that by two immutable things, 
in which it was impossible for God to he, we might have 
a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold 
upon the hope set before us." — Heb. vi. 17, 18. 

But as the will of a testator cannot take effect until 
after his death, Jesus was compelled to die, to accom- 
plish the designs of his testament or tvill, so that the heirs 
of promise might inherit the estate and become the pos- 
sessors of the legacy bequeathed to them ; which legacy 
is the glory that he had with the Father before the world 
began. "And now, Father, glorify thou me with 
thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee be- 
fore the world was." — John xvii. 5. 

But he rose from the grave the third day, and became 
his own executor, and excuted the will of the Father, as 
he did in his primitive glory with the Father before the 
world began. And he became a conqueror over death, 
hell and the grave, for all that the Father gave him. 
"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors 
through Him that loved us.' -Rom. viii. 37. The will 
of the Father being the will of the Son and the will of 
the Son being the will of the heirs, and the heirs being 
in the Son, and the Son being in the Father, would make 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 23l 



such a vital and everlasting union between the Father, 
Son and heirs, that outside contestants would stand but 
a poor showing before the courts of heaven in setting 
aside the will or testament of the' Lord, and lawfully 
claiming any part of the inheritance. " My sheep hear 
my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And 
I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish.; 
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My 
Father, which gave them me, is greater than all ; and 
no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 
I and my Father are one." — John x. 27, 31. 

They further contend that the head represents Christ, 
and that the body represents the church ; and that a 
mother always dresses the body of her child because it 
is her child, and does not dress it to make it ' her child ; 
that she could not dress the child of any other with the 
same spirit of love and devotion that she cares for her 
own child ; and that Christ, the head, represents the wis- 
dom of the mother in dressing the body, the sympathy 
of Christ, the head, being with the body, or church, com- 
municating divine life to each member of this body at 
his own appointed time and in his own appointed way ; 
and that when this divine life is communicated to the 
last member of this body, or church, clothing them with 
divine inspiration, time will be no more ; and that the 
body of Christ (church) will then be in full fruition 
with the Father, in that everlasting compact that ex- 
isted with the Father and the Son before the world be- 
gan ; and that all the things of time, human reason, 



232 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

sympathy and intellect, will all be buried in the grave, 
never again to be resurrected ; but that all the bodies of 
the saints will be resurrected and clothed with immor- 
tality on the great day of the resurrection. " And I saw 
the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the 
books were opened : and another book was opened, which 
is the book of life : and the dead were judged out of those 
things which were written in the books, according to 
their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were 
in it ; and death and hell delivered up the dead which 
were in them ; and they were judged every man accord- 
ing to their works. And death and hell were cast into 
the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whoso- 
ever was not found written in the book of life was cast 
into the lake of fire." — Kev. xx. 12, 15. " So also is the 
resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is 
raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonor, it is raised 
in glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power ; 
it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. " — 
I Cor. xv. 42, 45. " So when this corruptible shall have 
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying 
that is written, death is swallowed up in victory." — I 
Cor. xv. 54. They further teach that all the saints of 
God will be just like God, and will know God as God 
knows them, having God's wisdom, God's honor, God's 
features and God's glory, and that they will be in per- 
fect felicity with God in heaven forever and ever, all 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 233 

their humanity, griefs, woes, sorrows, sympathies and 
sins having been left in the grave, where they were con- 
signed to their mother earth from whence they came. 
" ' Beloved, now are we the sons of God ; and it doth not 
yet appear what we shall be : but we know that when 
he shall appear we shall be like Him ; for we shall see 
Him as He is."— I John hi. 2. And if the saints in 
heaven are like God, and anything was to transpire that 
was averse to the will of the saints, or body of Christ, 
the same thing would be averse to the will of God ; and 
that the designs of God and the felicity of God and His 
people would be overthrown, and heaven would not be 
heaven ; for God Himself would not be happy, because 
His people would not be happy, and He and they are 
alike in heaven. In consequence of the above Scriptural 
arguments, they say that all of our grave -yard and death- 
bed stories, that excite the human sympathies of the 
silly, making them believe that there is natural love and 
affections in heaven, and that should they be fortunate 
enough to get there, that they would be grieved at the 
nonappearance of natural kindred and loved ones, and 
that natural heavenly recognition was a necessity in the 
completion of their eternal happiness, is all homespun 
and bosh. * • For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy 
slayeth the silly one. I have seen the foolish taking 
root : but suddenly I cursed his habitation. His chil- 
dren are far from safety, and they are crushed in the 
gate, neither is there any to deliver them." — Job. v. 2, 
4. ' ' Having a form of godliness, but denying the power 



234 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

thereof : from such turn away. For of this sort are they 
which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women 
laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learn- 
ing, and never able to come to the knowledge of the 
truth."— II Tim. hi. 5, 7. They further teach that in the 
testament or will of Jesus he never appointed any exe- 
cutors to his will, in the form of missionary boards, exe- 
cutive committees, financial committees, etc., whose 
duty it was to appoint ministers to certain fields of labor, 
and covenant with them as to the amount of labor to be 
performed, and the price to be paid for it, upon con- 
ditions that if the labor is performed the money will be 
paid, and if the work is not done the contract will be 
void, and the minister heavily censured or excommuni- 
cated from the ministry. 

They say that this is selling Jesus to the people, and 
making merchandise of the gospel of Christ. "And 
through covetousness shall they with feigned words 
make merchandise of you : whose judgment now of a 
long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth 
not." — II Peter ii. 3. "And said unto them that sold 
doves, Take these things hence ; make not my Father's 
house a house of merchandise. And His disciples re- 
membered that it was written, The zeal of thine house 
hath eaten me up."— John ii. 16, 17. But that the apos- 
tles and disciples of Jesus went where the Spirit di- 
rected them, and preached the gospel to all the inhabitants 
of the then inhabited world, independent of the mis- 
sionary boards, committees and commissions of men, 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 235 

and received the same persecutions that the Primitive 
Baptists do to-day ; yea, even worse ; for they were in- 
carcerated and beaten even unto death for contending 
for the same everlasting gospel, and denouncing the de- 
vices and doctrines of men, as do the Old Baptists to- 
day : but the apostles rejoiced "that they were counted 
worthy to suffer shame for His name." — Acts v. 41. 
But that the Old Baptist ministers are under no special 
obligations to serve a church or people, without they 
are moved by the Spirit to do so ; but f eeling that there 
is a great responsibility resting upon them to go and 
proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to a dying world, 
that peradventure they may supply some poor, thirsting 
soul with spiritual food, and edify them in the things of 
the kingdom, and cause them to denounce the legisla- 
tive courts of Babylon, and accept the ecclesiastical 
courts of heaven, and enlist under the banner of Jesus, 
becoming identified and consecrated with the people of 
God. And that in doing this they follow the pattern of 
the apostles and disciples of old, taking God for surety ; 
believing that the same Spirit that admonishes them to 
go and preach, will stimulate the disciples and friends of 
the Christian religion to sustain them as they go, inde- 
pendent of all the moneyed machineries of Antichrist. 

Now, sir, you are certainly aware of having impressed 
one of the most lordly of our ministers, who was the 
presiding officer at our east Texas conference, in the city 
of Henderson, in the fall of 1882, to burlesque these Old 
Baptists, by relating a circumstance connected with 



230 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

their history ; which circumstance they say has been 
common among them from the days of antiquity to the 
present, God leaving himself but one or two visible wit- 
nesses to testify in behalf of the great Redeemer of 
souls. 

Bishop Parker said, in one of his grandest appeals to 
the sympathies of a large and attentive audience, for 
money to support foreign missions, which missions had 
in the past converted and saved untold thousands of 
souls that otherwise would have been lost, adding num- 
erical strength to the church, whose combined influence 
and liberality had unclogged the wheels of Zion, and 
that Zion was then on the grand road to victory, adding 
strength, means and numbers to her already grand 
achievements ; and if the church would give to Zion their 
prayers, and open their purses to her ministers, giving 
them the means to procure a passport into every nook 
and corner of the inhabited globe, that the time would 
not be far distant when all the inhabitants of the earth 
would become moralized and Christianized under their 
benign influence, and the Christian millennium would 
soon be ushered in upon the inhabitants of the earth, 
and one grand hallelujah could be sent up from the 
earth's remotest bounds to the throne of God in heaven. 
He then related the circumstance that occurred among 
a very meager sect, known as the Anti-missionary Bap- 
tists, from a want of missionary aspirations. He stated 
that one of our missionaries was traveling and preaching 
to the destitute in one of the older states, and in route 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 237 

passed through a densely populated community, the in- 
habitants being well educated, moralized and Christian- 
ized. In the midst of this community he passed a re- 
spectable church building and grave-yard ; the church- 
yard and grave-yard had grown up with a dense mass of 
weeds and brush, and the house was soiled from age and 
neglect, and to all human appearances was the home of 
the owls and the bats. Curiosity, combined with the 
love of God, led this man of God to inquire after the 
owners of this property, situated in such a beautiful 
grove, and surrounded by such elegant refinement ; and, 
behold, it was the property of the Anti-missionary Bap- 
tists, and its decay was the result of their anti-mission- 
ary heresy. He asked the neighbors what had become of 
them ; and the reply was that many of them had grown 
old and had died, and that their remains were beneath 
the brush and briars in the grave-yard ; others had 
moved away, and one only was left in this community 
to tell the tale of their demise. 

Now, sir, one or two of these Old Baptists happened to 
be present at this grand convocation of our ministers, 
and actually mocked the effort of our lovely bishop ; and 
when we would presume to mention his effort to them, 
hoping to hear a word of approbation, they would repulse 
us by reciting us to several circumstances mentioned in 
the Bible, where the God of heaven had left himself on 
several occasions with but one or two visible witnesses 
to testify for and proclaim the glad tidings of the great 
Redeemer of souls. 



238 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

They would then call our attention to Noah, Lot, 
Elijah and many others of like precious faith ; but 
especially would they call our attention to the circum- 
stance of old Elijah, and Baal with his four hundred and 
fifty prophets. " And Eh j ah came unto all the people, 
and said, How long halt ye between two opinions ? If 
the Lord be God, follow him ; but if Baal, then follow 
him. And the people answered him not a word. Then 
said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a 
prophet of the Lord : but Baal's prophets are four hun- 
dred and fifty men." And the prophets of Baal accepted 
the proposition of Elijah to try their gods, and see who 
was God. " And they took the bullock which was given 
them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of 
Baal from morning even until noon, saying, 0, Baal, 
hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that an- 
sw ered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. 
And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them, 
and said, Cry aloud; for he is a god: either he is talking, 
or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or perad venture 
he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried 
aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with 
knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them." 
But that when old Elijah repaired the altar of the Lord, 
and put the sacrifice upon it, with twelve barrels of 
water on it and around it, and called all the people to- 
gether, he got down in a very humble way, as do these 
Old Baptists, and prayed the God of heaven, " Hear me, 
Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 239 

art the Lord God. and that thou hast turned then heart 
back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and con- 
sumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, 
and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the 
trench. " — I Kings xviii. 

They say that this bellowing, howling, crying, cutting 
themselves with knives and lancets, making a mighty 
appeal to Baal, begging their god to send down fire and 
consume then offering, typifies Bishop Parker, with his 
concourse of prophets ''mi ni sters), making a similar ap- 
peal to their god to accept then sacrifice and consume 
their offering. And that the principles of this poor. old. 
lonely Baptist whom Bishop Parker was trying to ridi- 
cule, is the anti-type of the principles of old Elijah, who 
only remained a prophet of the Lord ; and that the same 
spirit through all ages of the world has given God all the 
praise, honor and glory, and has humbled the true Israel 
of God in the dust of humility. 

And that this poor Old Baptist that was left alone 
among the prophets ('ministers ) of Antichrist is one of 
the anti- types of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, when 
they were testing the realities of their gods ; and that 
Baal's was a complete failure, while the God of old Elijah 
inspired him and told him to mock them, and tell them to 
cry louder, peradventure their god was asleep, or had 
gone on a journey. After which old Elijah humbled 
himself in a very quiet manner (as do the Old Baptists 
to-day when offering up then petitions to God), and 
asked his God to consume the offering ; and in the 



L'4" SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

midst of the people and prophets of Baal, and to 
their astonishment, the God of Elijah sent down fire 
and licked np the water and consumed the offering : and 
that in all probability this lonely Old Baptist was the 
Elijah of that refined community. 

They then propose to show us God's discriminating 
grace and favor toward national Israel in their delivery 
from Egyptian bondage, and the utter destruction of the 
armies of Egypt, who sought to continue them in slave- 
ry : and that both nations were the creatures of God. 
and that He favored the Egyptians with wrath and arro- 
gance, but finally destroyed them, and chastized the 
Israelites in slavery and degradation, but finally saved 
them, r * For whom the Lord loveth he ehasteneth. and 

irgeth every boh whom He reeeiveth." — Heb. xii 
And that old Pharaoh is a type of our god. and that we 
and our arminian cohorts are the anti-types of the 
armies of Egypt, under the auspices of Pharaoh, and 
that in our determination to force God to accept our 
good works, and save us upon principles of justice, and 
claim eternal salvation as a payment for our many good 
deeds, is the antitype of the iron will of Pharaoh to 
1. afoe God to yield to the mandates of Pharaoh : but that 
God exemplified His power by sending miserable plagues 
upon Pharaoh, humiliating his proud and stubborn 
heart, until he was forced from circumstances to yield 
to the mandates of heaven and let the children of Israel 
but that (rod hardened his heart by withdrawing 
the plagues ; and that immediately, with all tl) 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 241 

perated fury of a demon, he pursued them with his 
armies of avarice to his entire destruction, and to their 
deliverance as ordained or predetermined by God ; and 
that the same power that saved the Israelites, destroyed 
the proud Egyptians ; and that in like manner the same 
power that humiliates these Old Baptists with the chas- 
tening rod of poverty and derision, will ultimately de- 
stroy their proud arminian persecutors, whom God has 
blessed with the wealth and arrogance of Pharaoh ; and 
that their arguments, aided by the power and word of 
God, are as terrifying to our system of salvation as were 
the plagues that God sent upon old Pharaoh for his re- 
fusal to let the children of Israel go, as commanded by 
Moses under the direction of God. But that we are like 
old Pharaoh ; when the plagues are withdrawn, our 
hearts become hard again ; and when the devouring 
arguments are withdrawn for a season, we rise again in 
our own strength, as did Pharaoh, and bid the God of 
these Old Baptists defiance. "For He saith to Moses, I 
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will 
have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So 
then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that run- 
neth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the Scrip- 
tures saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose 
have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in 
thee, and that my name might be declared throughout 
all the earth. Therefore hath He mercy on whom He 
will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth."-— 
Kom. ix. 15, 19, 



HZZ -T7 7->H Z~ Z~ I~ 



>♦ ~ zz " - — "--." - 

_:.-- ._•-_:-- —^ zl zi- zzztZz— - : ;zz - zz 
:z - -"--- :-;•- --- : . ■ --- -• zi: -- - 'si- z: 
:ir z-zz-z : zz~ z :z- 



z: "JL-7 — :zl: i~zz 

zzz-rZ - z - z "-' z_— - ^zT'zz-r- • ;- ~--~J Iz-z 

rz:> z z z ~-— - zz-- • :rzzL> z_ >z - • : • r:e:zz 

- ;.i " z^zzz > ; "_- - : -.-- ;:ir zz ';: zz : zz.zz 

And when vt ny to them that God is no re- 

z: zi - — ••_ ' - -•--: z zz-; zl 

- _ - ;-_.. --- : _, . : " - . --„..--- - 

_ - . ' - ' — - — — ■ •— - •--- - - - •■• • - - - — - 

-.-.-.-- zzz - •'_ z z :-;---: : -:-_.- ' :: zi 

r~-r zi": z -.- "z " :'-:zr-~z zzzz iz : ~~ ,:ir:.: :zz:- 

- :-:_ — z -.::>;.-rii -z Ezzz "— _Z z z. 4 Z 

I _- Zr" Si" " ■ -_ - :Z- . ZZZZ I . ZJ>~ :z_« ZZ I- 

ilr -z_ : ; zr. - 1 V:~ —z zzz z~ - - ' :■ £ri : -z_. 

7 
Li:z ' : izz i .— ._ Zr z_:z- - _ : ;zzv.i V— rrn 
_I~ z lr Zii:z,:?:z-^ zi-z ~,-z: :•;• :z-r 
- r -r_.-- '.-.::.--: - •: zj,.: -. :-z"- iz: z_- z.- ,-z:..-. 

I most bring, and they shall hear my voice; 

zz: "z-z-r zzzl - z-r : z. z: - -;_ -■; z-z ~— -z 

" ;-__-_ - z Tzz: :- : z-vzl -.•": z. : -;-zz --- 

'_- zz: iz :_ zzz ;:-. '.zzz'-r'':- . ' -Zz- Az: 

when AwMwag was sent to Soul by the Lotd to comfort 

- ■ . ;z- .--zz: z ;_-. :'z - z -zz-zzz t - zz- L. :•: 






-77? — 

told him that Saul ofTai 
cos. and that he pra yeSh. 

171 ~ 177 It 777-1 11 ZZZ. 

' ' z i~ '.—- _•: r*i -7-1 1 .tit : 
:z 7ri ~t---L 777 : t_t : 

llir- 77 1 7777- 77 1 171 

5Ji;~ 7177 7 — 77-77 : 



'. 7" : I ;■ in -- 

7.7 1 77. 1 1777 

711 - : t ii -I "-oil 
ra^- : for he is a 



— zi 



.77 1 



:i 7t 7:1:7.11 z- 

~7i: 77 7171 



111 :- 77 1 171 
— I.i L- 1 17 



:-" 



. •7-' . . . _ T 



244 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

ion that removes the Eed Sea from their front, and en- 
ables them to stand still and see the salvation of God ; 
and then they march through their great sea of trouble 
to Jesus upon dry land, leaving the armies of Antichrist 
behind and in pursuit of them, to be swallowed up in the 
boisterous waters that God had opened for their escape. 

They then propose to try our system of salvation, 
based upon the combined efforts of man and the offered 
favors of God, and compare it with their system of sal- 
A^ation by grace alone, and the positive favors of God. 
They claim that the grace of God in their hearts will in- 
evitably produce acceptable good works, and that God 
works in all the saints. ' ' For it is God which worketh 
in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." — 
Phil. ii. 13. While good works will never produce the 
special favor of grace, neither can the Father be hired or 
bribed by the good works of carnal man to bestow the 
special favor of grace upon them, but that common favors 
will always follow the legitimate good works of the carnal 
mind. 

They say that in the days of Noah God made a pro- 
found test of salvation by grace, and salvation by our 
effort system, and that our effort system was an entire 
failure, while salvation by grace alone was a complete 
success. 

In the days of Noah the people became desperately 
wicked, and bid the ways of pod defiance ; " and it re- 
pented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, 
and it grieved him at His heart." — Gen. vi. 6. It is 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 245 

not to be supposed here that His divinity repented, or 
that His divinity had a sympathetic fleshly heart, but 
that His humanity repented, and not His divinity. 
" Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, 
and cometh down from the Father of lights, with 
whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." — 
James i. 17. Therefore His divinity could not repent. 
The people in those days, as now, had sought out many 
inventions, that they might receive a part of the glory 
and honors of their own eternal salvation, by various 
systems and doctrines of men, to promote 'their own self- 
aggrandizement ; but the glory of the Father being the 
glory of the Son, and the glory of the Son being the 
glory of the Father, and every heir of promise being in 
the Son, and the Son in the Father, and for the great 
love that the Father had for the Son, and that the Son 
had for the church, the Father manifested His power 
and eternal purposes by sending a flood and destroying 
the world, thereby setting aside the abominations and 
doctrines of men; preserving his eternal promise and pur- 
poses with the heirs of promise to His Son, through the 
heirs of righteous Noah, thence to Abraham, thence to 
Isaac, thence to the coming of Christ, thence to all the 
nations of the earth, by the middle wall of partition be- 
ing broken down between nations ; since which time 
God has had an elect people among all nations, kindreds 
and tongues, "For the promise is unto you, and to your 
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the 
Lord our God shall call." — Acts ii. 39. 



246 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

" But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." — 
Gen. vi. 8. Noah being the only preacher of righteous- 
ness that was left to proclaim the glad tidings of sal- 
vation by grace alone, God preserved His church through 
him. " And spared not the old world, but saved Noah, 
the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in 
the flood upon the world of the ungodly." — II Pet. ii. 5. 
And the Lord commanded Noah, ' * Make thee an ark of 
gopher wood : rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and 
shalt pitch it within and without with pitch," etc. — Gen. 
vi. 14. The Lord commanded him as to its precise di- 
mensions, its length, breadth, height, depth, rooms, 
doors, windows, and every minutiae was specially desig- 
nated. And Noah by faith did precisely as God com- 
manded him. " And Noah did according unto all that 
the Lord commanded him." — Gen. vii. 5. He did not 
transcend nor fall short of the limits of his Lord, but was 
willing to take God for surety, without conferring with 
any of the devices or institutions of men ; for " By faith 
Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, 
moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his 
house; by the which he condemned the world, and became 
heir of the righteousness which is by faith." — Heb. xi. 7. 

Now, sir, they tell us that the faith and God of old 
Noah is the same faith and God that these Old Baptists 
have to-day, and that they follow the commands of their 
God to-day with that same abiding faith that Noah, Lot, 
Abraham and all the old patriarchs did, without adding 
to or taking from, just as Noah did in building the ark ; 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 247 

and that when the ark was complete, Noah did not have 
to go himself nor send ont missionaries to bring in the 
promised inhabitants of the ark, but that God sent them 
in by pairs and by sevens, both male and female, of all 
the animals, fowls and creeping things of the earth ; and 
that Noah was not required to even shut the door ; he 
was so free from an agency in their salvation and pre- 
servation. " And they went in unto Noah into the ark, 
two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. 
And they that went in, went in male and female of all 
flesh, as God had commanded him ; and the Lord shut 
him in."— Gen. vii. 15, 16. 

Now, sir, this is what these Old Baptists call salvation 
by grace alone ; this is what they call the unadulterated 
Christian's faith, that humbles them, and makes them 
willing to bear all the persecutions and derisions of Anti- 
christ, for Christ's sake ; and that this is one of the many 
examples of abiding faith in God by the primitive Chris- 
tians ; and that God is the same God to-day that He was 
then ; and that genuine Christians have the same special 
favors of salvation by grace, and faith in the sufficiency 
of God to do all His pleasure to-day, as He had in the 
primitive days, "with whom is no variableness, neither 
shadow of turning." And that their God is a God of 
purpose, and does not do things at random, but does all 
things after the eternal purpose of His will. " Declar- 
ing the end from the beginning, and from ancient times 
the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel 
shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." — Is. xlvi. 10. 



24 S SUPPOSED ESTER VIEW. 

They will then take up our combination of salvation 
by works and grace, and compare our present system of 
an offered salvation, upon conditions that we do many 
good works to secure the special favors of God's grace, 
and harmonize it with the effort system of the willwor- 
shipers or ungodly Pharisees, who mocked old Noah at 
the time of the building of his ark : and that the same 
spirit that counseled the Pharisees of old to mock old 
Noah for following the precise commands of his Lord, 
stimulates us to mock these old Baptists to-day for do- 
ing just as Noah did when he refused to negotiate with 
any of the Pharisaical devices of men, but determined 
implicitly to obey the mandates of heaven, taking God 
for surety in all things. 

They say that when the ark was finished, and all the 
promised inhabitants were sent in by God, and God 
then shut them in, that they can then see in their 
mind's eye the dark clouds beginning to rise, the heavy 
peals of thunder, the vivid lightning flashing through 
the yielding ether, the dark and dismal forebodings that 
cover heaven's high ethereal dome, then the rain begins 
to fall in torrent floods from the heaven's shrouded 
skies ; with that they see large and horror stricken 
groups of willworshipers helping God to stop the mighty 
consternation with their prayers ; while Noah and all 
the inhabitants of the ark sit with perfect complacency 
in the ark, under the almighty protection of God's 
amazing grace. They then see the waters begin to rise 
in the small tributaries, thence to the larger streams. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 249 

thence the low grounds are covered, thence the margin 
of the hills are shrouded with the awful tragedy of 
God's indignation upon the people of Antichrist for then 
ungodly irreverence to the mandates of heaven ; they 
still see destruction pursuing them by the swelling 
waters reaching then 1 cottages and barns : their horses. 
camels, oxen, asses, and all then portable substance is 
then gathered together on the effort system : the horses 
and oxen are harnessed to cans and wagons, which are 
laden with commissaries and supplies, the camels are 
packed with other burdens of weight, and with one 
common consternation they ascend the hills for protec- 
tion : the waters finally push them from the hills, and 
they flee to the mountains. In ascending the highest 
peaks, they see the strength of the horses, oxen and 
camels failing with their drenched and heavy burdens : 
they see the teamsters exhausted from hunger and 
fatigue, and women and children behind pushing at the 
wheels, and crying at the astonishment and consterna- 
tion of God's wrath upon them. Finally they reach the 
loftiest peaks of the mountain, much of the debris and 
less valuable property being left behind them. But the 
scene of this awful catastrophe is not yet consummated. 
The waters float them off the highest peaks of the 
mountains ; and amidst all the crying, shrieks and lam- 
entations of dying men. women and children, who are 
expecting salvation upon the effort system, they are 
swept off into the mighty waters, some clinging to the 
floating pieces of furniture, carts and wagons, until all 



250 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

are submerged into the mighty waters of the flood ; 
while Noah and his family are floating upon the boister- 
ous water in perfect complacency, under the protection 
of God's amazing mercy and grace. 

Now, Sir, they say that we wLllworshipers are equally 
zealous in our effort system, at our excitement meet- 
ings, popularly known as revivals, and especially when 
our revival is held in the midst of some inundation, 
conflagration, epidemic or contagion, thereby impeding 
the common pursuits of lif e, and hazarding the life and 
property of the inhabitants ; and that our religion has a 
much greater effect upon us under such circumstances 
than at any other season of the year ; and that when 
our good old effort Christians become cognizant of the 
impending danger that confronts them, and they see 
temporal and eternal destruction in the near future, 
their religion revives, and our popular effort system is 
at once called into requisition, as in the time of the 
flood. 

But that these Old Baptists, in the midst of all these 
excitements and disasters, are found complacently fol- 
lowing the examples of the patriarchs of old, and are by 
faith standing still, waiting for the salvation of the 
Lord. 

They further say that at the time of such excitements 
they see us gathering together in groups, and trying to 
help God save the people from the awful calamities that 
await them, thereby mocking God by asking him to 
change the decrees of heaven, by rearranging the course 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 251 

and relationship of the astronomical bodies so that rains 
and pestilences may come to suit those more competent 
to judge of the times, seasons and pestilences than the 
Lord. And that when these troubles press us closer 
and closer, as the waters of the flood followed our 
spiritual ancestors, that we climb the hills higher and 
higher, until we reach the summit of excitement in our 
religious exercises ; and that when our teamsters, (min- 
isters,) fail to be able to roll the wheels of the loaded 
chariots of supplies {unconverted) to the supposed sum- 
mit of safety, they see the old fathers and mothers with 
their deluded offspring pushing at the wheels of their 
supposed chariots of Zion, crying at the top of their 
voices, upward and onward, " Amen, glory to God, help 
us, God, to save these sinners from the gulf of de- 
spair, for we know that the devil has greater power to 
engulf them in ruin than you have to save them with- 
out our help ; therefore, Lord, come down with thy 
help and might, and we will help you to save them ; for 
we know, Lord, that you are a willing God, and all 
that you need in their salvation is our assistance, which 
shall be rendered without stint ; and with your help, 
Lord, we will land them on the summit of safety, where 
the devil can never reach them, if they will only stay 
within the limits of our protection." 

But that they see the flood of endless destruction 
reaching the summit of our supposed safety upon the 
effort system, and enveloping the highest peaks of our 
retreat, submerging us, together with our floating idols. 



252 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

to which we cling, until all is buried in the awful abyss 
of endless despair upon the effort system ; while those 
who have been killed, in their transition from nature to 
grace, to the boastful stratagems of salvation by works, 
are floating upon the all sufficiency of God's mercy and 
grace, and are by faith following the precepts and ex- 
amples of the patriarchs of old, and are found to be 
standing still in times of religious peril, and waiting for 
the salvation of the Lord. And if they are wrong, they 
say that they are conscientiously wrong, because they 
are perfectly resigned to the will and word of God, and 
are submissionists in a religious sense, having no power 
of their own, but are wholly dependent upon God for 
life and salvation ; neither do they propose to assist God 
by pushing at the wheels of Zion and throwing dust in 
the air ; indirectly asking God to take a back seat, and 
that they will carry on the work of soul saving ; and 
after they have accomplished the work of converting 
and saving many souls, then ask God in their petitions 
to bless the work and save their converts from apostasy ; 
thereby mocking God, as though He were in His dotage, 
and not able to do all His pleasure without the puny 
help of man with his feigned efforts to assist God in the 
salvation of sinners. 

They say that it is impossible for any candid Christian 
to gainsay the power and will of God, when the word of 
God declares that He works all things after the counsel 
of His own will. "In whom also we have obtained an 
inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose 



SUPPOSED IXTEKYIEW. 253 

of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His 
own will." — Eph. i. 11. And that He works in His 
chosen people to will and to do of His own good pleasure, 
and that He works in no one else. " For it is God which 
worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good plea- 
sure.'' — Phil. ii. 13. And that His people shall be a wil- 
ling people in the day of His power. " Thy people shall 
be willing in the day of Thy power." — Ps. ex. 3. And 
that the Old Baptists do not work for numbers nor for 
policy, so far as this world is concerned, but that they 
are actuated from a higher incentive than the accumu- 
lation of members to swell their treasury under the 
guise of God's insolvency, and hence inability to save 
souls without money ; but that they are ever zealous to 
keep the world out of the church, and thereby preserve 
peace, harmony, brotherly love and Christian fellowship 
among themselves. "Pure religion and undefiled be- 
fore God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless 
and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself un- 
spotted from the world." — James i. 27. Hence they are 
a peculiar people, zealous of good works. ■ ' Who gave 
himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, 
and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of 
good works." — Tit. ii. 14. And that they have every 
confidence in God's ability to make all His chosen people 
a willing people in the day of His power, without any 
bulldozing or logrolling them into the church for policy's 
sake, upon the testimony of a fleshly experience and 
carnal repentance, actuated from human sympathy, 



254 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

caused by the narration of some grave-yard or death-bed 
story, regardless of a godly sorrow for sin. 

They further say that we dishonor God when we limit 
His foreknowledge, and that His foreknowledge compre- 
hended all things that have or will exist, from the com- 
mencement to the end of time, in all their varied forms, 
latent, active, passive and positive ; and that His fore- 
knowledge is synonymous with His absolute predestina- 
tion of all things ; and that it would be impossible for 
God to foreknow any circumstance, action or substance, 
without predestinating it ; and that it would be wholly 
inconsistent for God to predestinate any circumstance, 
action or substance, without a foreknowledge of it ; and 
that the ingenuity of men and devils cannot invent any- 
thing that is new to Him ; and that He rules and con- 
trols all things to His own honor and glory, and makes 
the wrath of man to praise Him. " Surely the wrath of 
man shall praise Thee : the remainder of wrath shalt 
Thou restrain." — Ps. lxxvi. 10. And that when we are 
vaunting and throwing dust in the air, in helping God 
to save souls, and ridiculing the Old Baptists for not 
chiming in with us, we are making our wrath to praise 
God, in the establishment of His elect or chosen people ; 
and that all the murderous and blasphemous devices of 
those who make no religious pretenses, and the execu- 
tion and punishment of them before the courts, only 
serve to praise God, by disgusting His elect people and 
causing them to shun the appearance of evil. " Abstain 
from all appearance of evil. " — I Thes. v. 22. And that 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 255 

when He has accomplished His designs in taaking the 
wrath of man to praise Him, He restrains the remainder 
of man's wrath by the penalties of the law, which is in 
hot pursuit of the evil doer. Therefore He is the creator 
and preserver of all things, both good and evil, and all 
for His own glory. " For by Him were all things 
created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible 
and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or 
principalities, or powers : all things were created by 
Him, and for Him, and He is before all things, and by 
Him all things consist." — Col. i. 16, 17. Therefore the 
Father knew all things, and made known to His Son all 
things. " I and my Father are one." This being the 
case He certainly knew from all eternity who would be 
saved and who would be lost ; and in the covenant of 
grace between the Father and the Son before the world 
began, the Father either gave the Son a part of the 
human family, who should be the happy recipients of His 
Holy Spirit, or He gave him all of them ; and upon the 
theory of a universal atonement, the Universalists are 
correct ; for God cannot be disappointed. " All that the 
Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh 
to me I will in no wise cast out." — John vi. 37. We 
dare not say that any part or parcel whom the Father 
gave the Son will not come unto Him ; for the Father 
and the Son have emphatically said that they shall come. 
"My Father,, which gave them me, is greater than all ; 
and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's 
hand." — John x. 29. And should we presume to say 



256 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

that they can or cannot come, or that they can or cannot 
apostatize if they will upon their own volition, would be 
to give God the lie, which would be blasphemy ; for God 
says that they shall come, and that no man is able to pluck 
them out of His hand. The testimony of Paul says, 
" Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors 
through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that 
neither death, nor lif e, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be 
able to separate us from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." — Eom. viii. 37, 38, 39. There- 
fore they say that their eternal salvation is positive, be- 
cause the God of heaven never does His work but one 
time, and that His first work has stood the test of ages, 
and will stand through all ages to come ; and that Jesus 
finished the salvation of all that the Father gave him, 
at the time of his crucifixion. "When Jesus therefore 
had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished : and he 
bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." — John xix. 30. 
"I have glorified thee on the earth : I have finished the 
work which Thou gavest me to do." — John xvii. 4. 

" These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to 
heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come ; glorify thy 
Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee : as thou hast 
given him power over all flesh, that he should give 
eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." — John 
xvii. 1, 2. And that when divine life is communicated 
to those whom the Father gave the Son, this divine life 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 257 

will never leave them, nor commit sin. "I give unto 
them eternal life, and they shall never perish." u We 
know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not : but 
he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that 
wicked one toucheth him not." — I John v. 18. 

Now, sir, these Old Baptists will positively ensnare us, 
by asking us similar questions to the following, and 
then exult over their victory : 

Do you admit the absolute foreknowledge of God in all 
things ? 

We are compelled to answer that we do. 

Do you agree that He chose His people in Christ be- 
fore the world began ? 

We are obliged to agree that He did, or deny the word 
of God. 

Do you admit that their names were all written in the 
Lamb's book of life before the world began ? 

The word of God emphatically says that they were, 
and we cannot deny it. 

Do you believe that there were any chosen who were 
out of Christ ? 

We cannot say that there were, because the Word of 
God says that they were all chosen in Christ. 

Do you believe that all who were chosen in Christ fell 
in Adam in his transgression % 

We certainly do. 

Do you believe that the spirits or souls of any who 
were not chosen in Christ fell in the transgression of 
Adam ? And if so, where and what did thev fall from ? 



258 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

We are compelled to answer that we do not know. 

Is it not a fact that if God foreknew all things, they 
stood condemned in the eternal wisdom of God from all 
eternity, and that those whom he chose in Christ stood 
justified in the wisdom of God from all eternity ? 

We are compelled to answer that we do not know, or 
expose our cause, having already admitted that God 
foreknew all things, and cannot be disappointed. 

Do you know why God chooses one and leaves another? 
or makes choice and converts one member of a family, 
and does not another ? or converts and regenerates one 
man, and does not another ? 

We are compelled to answer that we do not know. 

Does He not choose the ones that 'were chosen in 
Christ before the world began, and not the others ? 

We can but say that it really seems so. 

Would it not conflict with the foreknowledge of God 
for Him to choose any others except those whom He 
foreknew and gave the Son, who were chosen in Christ 
before the world began ? 

We are compelled to say that it would. 

Well, then, does He not choose some, and leave others 
because He chose them in Christ before the world began, 
and did not choose the others ? 

It certainly looks that way. 

Well, then, does the Father choose them to make 
them His Son's, or does he choose them because they are 
His Son's, and were once in Christ, and by heirship be- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 259 

long to Christ, having been given to the Son by the 
Father before the world began ? 

We are compelled to answer in the affirmative. 

They then claim a grand victory over us, and refer us 
to Paul's letter to the Galatians. ' i And because ye are 
sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your 
hearts, crying, Abba, Father." — Gal. iv. 6. And they 
say that God did not quicken them into spiritual life to 
make them sons, because they stood sons in the wisdom 
of God before the world began ; and to redeem His obli- 
gation to His Son, He was compelled to quicken or bring 
to spiritual lif e all who fell in Adam, who by covenant 
and blood relationship belonged to the Son, or make void 
His contract, which would be impossible 'for God to do, 
as He cannot he. We then propound some questions to 
them, and ask them if those whom the Father did not 
give the Son, did not also fall in Adam \ And if so, 
from what did they fall, since they were never in 
Christ ? 

And they tell us that they fell from their natural state 
of innocency in Adam, just as the heirs of promise did, 
and in a natural sense became like the heirs of promise, 
all partaking of the transgression of their federal head, 
Adam, who by his disobedience to the command of God, 
brought himself and his entire posterity under the con- 
demnatory sentence of the law ; and that the difference 
is, that God, through the efficacy of the blood of His 
Son, redeemed those whom He gave the Son by contract, 
and did not redeem those whom He did not give the 



260 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Son ; and that owing to this fact, God saves all alike in a 
time salvation, and bestows the same common favors 
upon the unjust as well as the just, all being His crea- 
tion, but not by redemption ; but that the salvation of 
those whom the Father did not give the Son terminates 
at the grave, while the ransomed of the Lord go on to 
the realms of eternal bliss and enjoy the full fruition of 
everlasting happiness with the Father in heaven ; hence 
Jesus died for the sins of the entire race of Adam, by 
living up to the exact requirements of the law ; and in a 
law sense all are the beneficiaries of His moral and tem- 
poral blessings, but especially did he shed his blood for 
those whom the Father gave him. 

Some of these Old Baptists have offered to hold an 
election with us, and let Jesus Christ and his apostles 
sit as the umpires, and decide who and which is the 
church of Christ by ballot. 

They say that they are no better than Samson was, 
and that Samson bet or wagered thirty sheets and thirty 
changes of garments with his enemies ; and that his ene- 
mies by fraud won the sheets and clothing ; and that 
they will bet us a fine suit of clothing, for the truth's 
sake, that the Old Baptists are elected by a large major- 
ity as being the church of Jesus Christ. But that they 
will not have any arbiters save Jesus Christ and his 
apostles, knowing that our corruption and greed for 
filthy lucre would swindle them out of the election, and 
hence the clothing, should they submit the vote to 
arbiters of our choosing. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 261 

They propose to have two large tally sheets, and have 
the names of the popular denominations, together with 
the Old Baptists, written under each other as candidates 
are in holding elections for the officers of the law, and 
that ' c Affirmative " be written over the names on one of 
the sheets, and that "Negative" be written over the 
names on the other sheet. And that we then, in the 
presence of God, commence and read from the first of 
Matthew to the last of Revelation, and that when we 
come to a command, ordinance or duty, as prescribed by 
Jesus Christ or any of his authorized apostles, that we 
cast our eyes up and down the list of contestants, and 
make a tally mark at the end of each name on the 
"Affirmative" page, that complies with said commands, 
ordinances or duties. And then look up and down the 
"Negative" sheet, and make a tally mark at the end of 
each name who does not comply with said commands, 
ordinances and duties ; who also add many of the doc- 
trines and commandments of men that are not written, 
and that when the election is over, we then count the 
votes, and if the Old Baptists are not elected by an over- 
whelming majority they will readily pay the clothing ; 
yea, thirty suits of clothing ; for they say that they would 
divest themselves of all their substance for the truth's 
sake. And, sir, we have thus far declined their proposi- 
tion, knowing that we would be beaten ; but our pretext 
is that it would be sinful to gamble ; not but that we 
could gain the election, as we are wont to hold out the 



363 SUPPOSED ESTER VIEW. 

idea to them, but we know that we would lose our 
notoriety and clothing. 

They then propose to criticise our innovations upon 
primitive doctrines, and say to our modern Missionary 
Baptist friends, who are trying to steal the name of 
Primitive Baptist, that they would like to know how 
the original articles of faith of the Baptists, from the 
days of the apostles up to the division of the Baptists, 
which occurred between the years A. D. 1830 and 1840, 
in the United States, will correspond with their present 
cherished salvation by the means of their Babylonish 
pet, the Sabbath school. And if the Primitive Baptists 
are not still in unison with the original articles of faith. 
They would like to know the age of our Sabbath school ; 
who was its founder, when it crossed the ocean, who 
taught the first one in the United States, and what was 
the result of its growth and teachings \ And if Harriet 
Beecher St owe and her brother Henry Ward Beecher. to- 
gether with Charles Sumner, and many others of like 
spiritual and political kin. did not write and circulate a 
book <the title of which was "Uncle Tom's Cab' 
among all the children of the nation, in advocacy of the 
abolition of slavery, condemning slavery as being in- 
human and sacrilegious. Did not the advocates of 
abolitionism first kidnap and steal the negroes from the 
land of their nativity, and sell them to the Southern 
whiteSj because a cold Northern climate was not adapted 
to th« ir Southern nativity, and therefore they could n A 
utilize them as servants in a cold Northern climate! 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 263 

And when the Congress of the United States passed a law 
prohibiting the African slave trade, did not the parties 
who were engaged in the kidnapping and theft of negroes 
then condemn the institution of African slavery as being 
Antichristian ! 

Did they not teach their children in the original Sab- 
bath schools of the United States that Southern slavery 
was a great crime i 

Did they not have the photographs of negroes upon 
canvas, and it suspended in then church houses, and 
the negroes bucked down before their Sabbath school 
classes, with the photograph of a Southern white man 
standing over them with a "cat of nine fails." and the 
blood gushing from the poor negro's nacked back i 
Was not all of this for the purpose of engendering 
political and religious hatred in the minds of their rising 
generations to Southern institutions \ 

They answer all these questions in the affirmative, 
and then ask us in the name of heaven if the Sunday 
school was not the prime cause of the late war between 
the States, in which so many precious lives were lost, 
and then souls launched into eternity. And they are 
presumptuous enough to claim that our Babylonish pet. 
the "Sabbath sclioo 7 ." instead of being an institution of 
Christ for the salvation of souls, has proven itself to be 
an institution of the devil, for the destruction of life, and 
has been tha means of engendering sectional hatred and 
strife among the people of the proudest nation of the 
earth. And that this sectional hatred, political and re- 



264 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

ligious strife, was all engendered in the original Sabbath 
schools of the United States, for the purpose of holding 
the political reins of the government, all of which was 
done in the guise of religious preferment. 

The African slave trade having been abolished by Con- 
gress, and the means of wealth from agriculture having 
been sold into the hands of Southern planters, and the 
means of Northern revenue from the kidnapping and theft 
of negroes having been stopped by an act of Congress, 
and the increase of wealth in the Southern States by the 
prolific negro and his natural adaptation to servile labor, 
guaranteed to the Southern capitalist the means of con- 
trolling the political reins of the government in the 
next half century ; hence the necessity of the Northern 
corruptionist to educate the rising generation of their 
day in this religious device, thereby abolishing slavery 
for political instead of religious designs, and enslaving 
the South with poverty and high protective tariffs, to the 
advancement of Northern capitalists, and hence control 
of the now concentrated government, but one State 
rights' government ; all of which has been caused from 
the corrupt devices of the original Sabbath schools. And 
that, strange as it may appear, the very people who have 
been enslaved by the teachings of Sabbath school heresies 
are now petting them as one of God's institutions in the 
salvation of souls. And that, should any of their modern 
Missionary Baptist friends presume to doubt that the 
modern missionaries claim life-giving powers for the 
Sabbath school, they would respectfully refer them to 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 265 

one of the minutes of one of the most popular Missionary 
Baptist associations in Eastern Texas, and give us the 
report of the committee on Sabbath schools ; and then_ 
give us the Old Baptist articles of faith, from the date of 
the division of the Baptists back to the apostles, and then 
ask us how these articles of faith harmonize with the 
teachings of this report on Sabbath schools, as indorsed 
by the leading Missionary Baptists of Texas. 

We quote from the Twenty-seventh Annual Session 
of the Cherokee Baptist Association ; and on the 4th page 
of their minutes we read as follows : 

"Keport on Sabbath Schools." 

" There is nothing of such importance, and of such 
vital interest to the well-being of a community, or to the 
prosperity of churches, as the Sabbath school. Its in- 
fluence reaches out in every direction, permeating with 
its life-giving power every nook and corner where chil- 
dren are to be found, if but the proper care and interest 
be manifested by parents and teachers in the building 
up and carrying on a Sabbath school in their respective 
neighborhoods. Some of the greatest lights in the church 
and in the world had their foundations for usefulness 
laid in the Sabbath school. By this means many a poor, 
ragged child has been lifted from the gutter, to after- 
ward take a high and exalted position in society, and oc- 
cupy permanent places of honor and trust in the church 
and in the State. Like a gentle rivulet, its effects may 
be weak, imperfect ; but they will continue to broaden 



266 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

and deepen, until like a mighty river it will bear on upon 
its bosom the freighted treasures of many souls redeemed 
and disinthralled, on to the great ocean of eternity. No 
one can measure the depths of its power, or look up to the 
heights of that divine love and grace which flow out 
from its holy influence. Then let us as an association, 
as churches, and as a people, look well to the interest of 
our children, to those who are to come after us, and up- 
on whom will rest the prosperity and perpetuity of free 
religious institutions. And if we can do no more, let us 
endeavor to organize a Sabbath school in every neigh- 
borhood, to meet even once a month ; for we should re- 
member that ' large streams from little fountains flow ; ' 
and if we cannot accomplish a great deal, we may lay 
the foundation stone for a future edifice that will become 
grand in proportions, beautiful in outlines, and may re- 
flect from its glittering spires an ineffable splendor and 
glory that will be seen and felt throughout the whole 
land, and become a light that poor shipwrecked souls, 
' sailing o'er life's troubled sea, ' may see and guard against 
the wrecks of sin, and woe, and ruin, and anchor safely 
in the port of everlasting rest. 

We would recommend that Kind Words be placed in 
the hands of the children, and have them read and un- 
derstand their lessons, whether they be able to recite 
them in school or not." C. B. Bacon, Ch'mn. 

These Old Baptists will ask us for heaven's sake to tell 
them what use the modern Missionary Baptists have for 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 267 

the Savior, when the parents and Sabbath school can 
make a full propitiation for the sins of all who come un- 
der their benign influence. And as the Sabbath school 
has life-giving power, they have no use for the atoning 
blood of Christ, and of course must have a Sabbath 
school, or they and their children will be engulfed in 
endless despair. And as the Sabbath school is scarcely 
one hundred years old, and was never known to be in a 
Baptist church up to that time, that thousands of souls 
have sunk down to ruin before its adoption into the 
churches ; and they say, ! why could it not have been 
discovered earlier, so that our ancestors and their dear 
children could have been saved from hell, as the blood of 
Christ is not sufficient without the Sabbath school ? 

They then present to us the articles of faith as held 
to by the Baptists from the time of the division of the 
Baptists, back to the days of the apostles, and claim 
them as the precise principle that the Old Baptists hold 
to to-day. Although they have assumed different names 
at different times for the sake of identity and distinction 
from those of Antichrist, who had unawares crept in 
among them to spy out their liberties and rob them of 
their name for policy's sake, yet that their original prin- 
ciples stand unsullied from the days of the apostles until 
the present. 

They then quote the articles of faith from the " Kehu- 
Jcee Baptist Association ," as published by Burkett and 
Beed's church history, upon which articles of faith the 
Philadelphia and Charleston Associations were organ- 



268 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

ized, said articles of faith being in accordance with the 
Old Baptist confession of faith published in London in 
1689. And they ask us to read them carefully and see 
who has departed from the old landmark ; and that if 
we have any discernment we can readily see why the 
Old Baptists withdrew their fellowship from the so-called 
Missionary Baptists in the years between A. D. 1830 and 
1840. And that we can further see whether or not said 
articles of faith chime in with the present system of sal- 
vation through the means and instrumentalities of the 
Sabbath school. 

Obligation, on page 31. 

"Forasmuch as Almighty God, by His grace, has been 
pleased to call us (whose names are underneath sub- 
scribed) out of darkness into His marvelous light, and all 
of us have been regularly baptized upon a profession of 
our faith in Christ Jesus, and have given up ourselves to 
the Lord and to one another, in a gospel church way, to 
be governed and guided by a proper discipline, agreeable 
to the Word of God ; 

"We do, therefore, in the name of our Lord Jesus, and 
by his assistance, covenant and agree to keep up the dis- 
cipline of the church we are members of, in the most 
brotherly affection towards each other, while we endeavor 
punctually to observe the following rules, viz : 

" 1st. In brotherly love to pray for each other, to watch 
over one another, and, if need be, in the most tender 
and affectionate manner to reprove one another," etc. 

At that time there were two orders of Baptists as 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 269 

there are to-day, known as the ' i Regular Baptists " and 
" Separate Baptists ." One was Arminian, and the other 
Predestinarian. One was a type of the Missionary Bap- 
tists of to-day, and the other was a type of the Primitive 
Baptists of to-day. The Arminians courted the Predes- 
tinarians, and they appointed a time for the wedding, 
and married in the year 1765, and the marriage cere- 
mony changed their names to the " United Baptists." 
They then commenced living together under the follow- 
ing agreement, or articles of faith, and lived together 
(but with many family feuds) until the years between 
A. D. 1830 and 1840, when the Missionary or Arminian 
element committed so much religious fornication with 
the daughters of Babylon (the false churches, Sabbath 
schools,, and other institutions of men, that are not 
authorized by the Word of God), that the Old Baptists 
or Predestinarians could not live with them any longer, 
and sued for a divorce on the testimony of religious for- 
nication. And the then late consort of the church openly 
acknowledged that he had committed adultery with 
many of the daughters of Babylon, and that he would 
not retract. Hence the Old Baptists, or church, under 
the laws of God, and under the rules regulating the 
church, known as the articles of faith, and rules of de- 
corum, procured a divorce ; since which time many of 
their Missionary Baptist friends have made love at them 
again, hoping to effect another compromise and marry 
them again ; but thus far the Old Baptists have declined 



270 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

to accept their hand, unless they will divorce themselves 
from all the daughters of Babylon. 

Articles of faith upon which the two parties were 
married into the name of the " United Baptists" A. D. 
1765, page 51 (which sets forth the same principles that 
the Old Baptists are still contending for), and was ordered 
to be published by the Association at Whitfield's meeting 
house, Pitt County, North Carolina, A. D. 1799. 

"First. We believe in the being of God, as almighty, 
eternal, unchangeable, of infinite wisdon, power, justice, 
holiness, goodness, mercy and truth ; and that this God 
has revealed Himself in His word under the characters of 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost. 

"Second. We believe that Almighty God has made 
known His mind and will to the children of men in His 
word ; which word we believe to be of divine authority, 
and contains all things necessary to be known for the 
salvation of men and women. The same is compre- 
hended or contained in the books of the Old and New 
Testaments, as are commonly received. 

" Third. We believe that God before the foundation of 
the world, for a purpose of His own glory, did elect a 
certain number of men and angels to eternal life ; and 
that this election is particular, eternal, and unconditional 
on the creatures' part. 

"Fourth. We believe that when God made man at first, 
he was perfect, holy and upright, able to keep the law, 
but liable to fall, and that He stood as a federal head or 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 271 

representative of all His natural offspring, and that they 
were to be partakers of the benefits of His obedience, 
or exposed to the miseries which sprung from his diso- 
bedience. 

"Fifth. We believe that Adam fell from this state of 
moral rectitude, and that he involved himself and all 
his natural offspring in a state of death, and for that 
original transgression we all are both filthy and guilty in 
the sight of a holy God. 

" Sixth. We also believe that it is utterly out of the 
power of men, as fallen creatures, to keep the law of 
God perfectly, repent of their sins truly or believe in 
Christ, except they be drawn by the Holy Spirit. 

"Seventh. We believe that in God's own appointed 
time and way (by means which He has ordained) the 
elect shall be called, justified, pardoned and sanctified ; 
and that it is impossible they can utterly refuse the call, 
but shall be made willing, by divine grace, to receive the 
offers of mercy. 

" Eighth. We believe that justification in the sight of 
God is only by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, 
received and applied by faith alone. 

"Ninth. We believe in like manner that God's elect 
shall not only be called and justified, but that they shall 
be converted, born again, and changed by the effectual 
working of God's Holy Spirit. 

' ' Tenth. We believe that such as are converted, justified 
and called by His grace, shall persevere in holiness, and 
never fall finally away. 



272 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

" Eleventh. We believe it to be a duty incumbent on all 
Grod's people to walk religiously in good works ; not in 
the old covenant way of seeking life, and the favor of 
the Lord by it, but only as a duty from a principle of 
love. 

" Twelfth. We believe baptism and the Lord's supper 
are gospel ordinances, both belonging to the converted, 
or true believers ; and that persons who were sprinkled 
or dipped whilst in unbelief were not regularly baptized 
according to God's word, and that such ought to be bap- 
tized after they are savingly converted into the faith of 
Christ. 

" Thirteenth. We believe that every church is independ- 
ent in matters of discipline ; and that associations, coun- 
cils and conferences of several ministers or churches are 
not to impose on the churches the keeping, holding or 
maintaining any principle or practice contrary to the 
church's judgment. 

' ( Fourteenth. We believe in the resurrection of the dead, 
both of the just and the unjust, and a general judg- 
ment. 

"Fifteenth. We believe the punishment of the wicked 
is everlasting, and the joys of the righteous are eternal. 

" Sixteenth. We believe that no minister has a right to 
the administration of the ordinances, only such as are 
regularly called, and come under imposition of hands by 
the Presbytery. 

"Seventeenth. Lastly, we do believe that for the mutual 
comfort, union and satisfaction of the several churches 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 273 

of the aforesaid faith and order, we ought to meet in an 
associational way, wherein each church ought to repre- 
sent their case by their delegates, and attend as often as 
is necessary to advise with the several churches in con- 
ference ; and that the decision of matters in such asso- 
ciations ought not to be imposed or in any wise binding 
on the churches without their consent, but only to sit 
and act as an advisory council." 

" These principles were adopted by the Association, at 
Elder James Bell's meeting-house, on Sappony, Sussex 
County, Virginia, and afterwards re-examined and recom- 
mended by the Association at Pottacasy meeting-house, 
in Northampton County, North Carolina, A. D. 1778." 

Now, sir, these Old Baptists will tantalize our Mis- 
sionary Baptist friends, and tell them for heaven's sake 
to read these articles of faith carefully, and then turn to 
Mr. C. B. Bacon's report on Sabbath Schools, which re- 
port is indorsed by the leading Missionary Baptists of 
Texas, and similar reports are indorsed by the leading- 
Missionary Baptists of the United States. They then 
ask them in the presence of God to tell them who has 
departed from the faith, and who has a bona fide title to 
the name, Old School or Primitive Baptists. 

In tracing themselves back to the apostles, they will 
refer us to some of the articles of faith that set forth the 
doctrines and tenets of the Old Baptists, as written by the 
Waldenses A. D. 1120, and published to the world A. D. 
1220, page 325, Jones' Church History. And they say 
that those ancient articles of faith are exactly in har- 



274 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

mony with the Old Baptists' abstract of principles of to- 
day. 

" Second Article. — We believe that Jesus Christ is the 
Son and image of the Father, that in Him all the fullness 
of the Godhead dwells, ^nd that by him alone we know 
the Father. He is our mediator and advocate ; nor is 
there any other name given under heaven by which we 
can be saved. In His name alone we call upon the 
Father, using no other prayers than those contained in 
the Holy Scriptures, or such as are in substance agree- 
able thereunto. 

' * Th ird. —We believe in the Holy Spirit as the comforter, 
proceeding from the Father and from the Son ; by whose 
inspiration we are taught to pray ; being by Him renewed 
in the Spirit of our minds : who creates us anew unto 
good works, and from whom we receive the knowledge 
of the truth. 

" Fourth. — We believe that there is one holy church, 
comprising the whole assembly of the elect and faithful 
that have existed from the beginning of the world, or 
that shall be to the end thereof. Of this church the 
Lord Jesus Christ is the head : it is governed by his word 
and guided by the Holy Spirit. In the church it be- 
hooves all Christians to have fellowship. For her he 
(Christ) prays incessantly, and his prayer for it is most 
acceptable to God, without which indeed there could be 
no salvation. 

" Tenth. — We contend that all those in whom the fear 
of G<><! dwells will thereby be led to please Him, and to 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. ■ 275 

abound in the good works of the gospel, which God hath 
before ordained that we should walk in them, which are 
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, 
sobriety, and the other good works enforced in the Holy 
Scriptures. 

"Eleventh. — On the other hand, we confess that we con- 
sider it to be our duty to beware of false teachers, whose 
object is to divert the minds of men from the true wor- 
ship of God, and to lead them to place their confidence 
in the creatures, as well as to depart from the good 
works of the gospel and to regard the inventions of men. 

" Twelfth. — We take the Old and New Testaments for 
the rule of our life, and we agree with the general con- 
fession of faith contained in what is usually termed the 
apostles' creed." 

Now, sir, they claim that the ancient Christians that 
held to this old abstract of principles are identified with 
the principles of the Old Baptists of to-day. 

" In the year 1210 twenty-four persons of the Wal- 
denses were seized in the city of Paris, some of whom 
were imprisoned,' and others committed to the flames. 
In the year 1331 the monks of the inquisition, who were 
deputed to search after the Waldenses, apprehended one 
hundred and fourteen of them at Paris, who were burnt 
alive, sustaining their torture with admirable fortitude." 
—Jones' Church History, page 383. "In the year 1530 
George Moel, one of the pastors of a church of the Wal- 
denses, published memoirs of the history of their 
churches, in which he states that at the time he wrote 



276 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

there were above eight hundred thousand persons pro- 
fessing the religion of the Waldenses : nor will this ap- 
pear an exaggerated statement if we consider the view 
that was given, in the last section, of their dispersion 
throughout almost every country of Europe, the immense 
numbers that suffered martyrdom, and that was form- 
erly mentioned that in the year 1315, namely, two cen- 
turies before this time, there were eighty thousand of 
them in the small kingdom of Bohemia."— Jones' Church 
History, page 426. 

" An edict was issued in favor of the Waldenses, bear- 
ing date the 5th of June, 1511, granting the privilege of 
holding their public assemblies in all the usual places, 
free from molestation ; and that such of them as had 
been injured by the seizure and confiscation of their 
property should have it restored, or receive compensation 
for the same." — Jones' Church History, page 464. " In 
the year 1601, Bartholomew Copin, a Waldensian of the 
valley of Lucerne, had occassion to attend a public fair 
at Ast, a city in Piedmont, to which he had brought for 
sale some articles of merchandise," etc. — Jones' Church 
History, page 472. 

" About the month of May, 1655, that many hundreds 
of the poor Protestants in the valleys of Piedmont, 
(otherwise known by the name of Waldenses*) within 
the territory of Duke of Savoy, were most cruelly mas- 
sacred by a Popish party." — Jones' Church History, page 
504. " The tranquility of the Waldenses in Piedmont 
was now first invaded by a proclamation issued by the 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 277 

governor of the valleys, about the end of the year 1685." 
They next refer us to Eobert Robinson, in his Eccle- 
siastical Researches, page 126, where Novatian in the 
year 251, was ordained the pastor of a church in the city 
of Rome, which maintained no fellowship with the Cath- 
olic church. 

" He was," says he, "an elder in the church of Rome, 
a man of extensive learning, holding the same doctrine 
as the church did, and published several treatises in de- 
fense of what he believed. His address was eloquent 
and insinuating, and his morals irreproachable. He saw 
with extreme pain the intolerable depravity of the church. 
Christians, in the space of a few years, were caressed by 
one Emperor and prosecuted by another. In seasons of 
prosperity many persons rushed into the church for base 
purposes. In times of adversity they denied the faith 
and reverted again to idolatry. When the squall was 
over they came again to the church, with all their vices, 
to deprave others by their examples. The bishops, fond of 
proselytes, encouraged all this, and transferred the atten- 
tion of Christians from the old confederacy for virtue, 
to vain shows at Easter, and other Jewish ceremonies, 
adulterated, too, with paganism. On the death of 
Bishop Fabian, Cornelius, a brother elder, and a violent 
partisan for taking in the multitude, was put in nomi- 
nation. Novatian opposed him : but as Cornelius car- 
ried his election, and he saw no prospect of reformation, 
but on the contrary a tide of immorality pouring into 
the church, he withdrew, and a great many with him. 



278 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

[A perfect type of the division of the Baptists in 1832.] 
Cornelius, imitated by Cyprian, who was just in the 
same condition, through the remonstrances of virtuous 
men at Carthage, and who was exasperated beyond meas- 
ure with one of his own elders, named Novatus, who 
had quitted Carthage and gone to Eome to espouse the 
cause of Novatian, called a council and got a sentence of 
excommunication passed against Novatian. In the end 
Novatian formed a church and was elected bishop. 
Great numbers followed his example, and all over the 
Empire Puritan churches were constituted and flour- 
ished through the succeeding two hundred years. Af- 
terwards, when penal laws obliged them to lurk in corn- 
ers, and worship God in private, they were distinguished 
by a variety of names, and a succession of them con- 
tinued till the reformation." "Here then," says Dr. 
Allix, " we have found a body of men in Italy, before 
the year one thousand and twenty-six, five hundred 
years before the Eeformation, who believed contrary to 
the opinions of the church of Eome, and who highly con- 
demned their errors." Atto, bishop of Verceulli, had 
complained of such people eighty years before, and so 
had others before him, and there are the highest reasons 
to believe that they had always existed in Italy." page 282. 
" On page 32, Mosheim refers to the church as it was 
in the years 61 and 94. On page 55, he refers to the 
church in the year 177. On page 78, he refers to the 
church in the year 211. On page 80, he refers to the 
church in the year 211). On page 81, he refers to the 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 279 

church in the year 270. On page 99, he refers to the 
church in the years 311, 324. On page 105, he refers to 
the Christian church in the years 330, 370. On page 
134, he refers to the church in the year 421. On page 170, 
he refers to the church in the years 524, 591. On page 
176, he refers to the church in the year 650. On page 200, 
he refers to the church in the year 775. On page 208, he 
refers to the church in the year 867. On page 209, he re- 
fers to the church in 827. On page 229, he refers to the 
church in 866. On page 236, he refers to the church in 
897. On page 253, he refers to the church in 1090. On 
page 295, he refers to the church in 1017. On page 330, 
he refers to the church in 1148. On page 331, he refers 
to the church in 360, 380. On page 371, he refers to the 
church in 1262. On page 375, he refers to the church in 
1209. On page 383, he refers to the church in 1307. On 
page 392, he refers to the church in 1387, 1415. And on 
page 399, he refers to the church in 1472, 1506. In 
volume second, page 35, Mosheim refers to the church 
in 1533, and on page 886, he refers to the church in 1655 
and 1685." — Debate on Church Identity, by Hardy & 
Wallace, page 46. 

Now, sir, to complete their chain of identity back to 
the apostles, they will refer us to page 99 of Jones' 
Church History, which shows that Paul the apostle was 
put to death in the year A. D. QQ, for contending for 
the same principles and for preaching the same everlast- 
ing gospel that the Old Baptists are contending for and 
preaching to-day. 



2S0 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

And then for o ur Missionary Baptist friends, who are 
contending for the life-giving powers of their Babylonish 
god (the Sabbath school), to have the presumption to claim 
the name, Primitive Baptist, is a shame before God, and 
is repulsive to all regenerated men and women who have 
any sense of honor or respect for truth or Christianity. 

They then propose to introduce another set of Old Bap- 
tist articles of faith written by the Waldenses hundreds 
of years before there was any such a people known as 
the Missionary Baptists, and see how they agree with 
the policy of the life-giving Sabbath school of our Mis- 
sionary Baptist friends. And they further propose to 
compare them with all the " means and instrumentality" 
system of our mission friends, and see if the means 
system of salvation is not a complete failure from the 
time of their introduction until we have completed their 
examination. 

" First. We believe and firmly maintain all that is con- 
tained in the twelve articles of the symbol, commonly 
called the apostle's creed, and we regard as heretical 
whatever is inconsistent with the said twelve articles. 

" Second. We believe there is one God, the Father, Son 
and Holy Spirit. 

" Third. We acknowledge for sacred canonical Scrip- 
tures the books of the Holy Bible. [Here the books are 
mentioned]. 

"Fourth. The books above mentioned teach us that 
there is one God, almighty, unbounded in wisdom and 
infinite in goodness, and who in His goodness has made 



STTPPOSED INTERVIEW. 281 

all things. For He created Adam after His own image 
and likeness. But through the enmity of the devil and 
his own disobedience, Adam fell, sin entered into the 
world, and we became transgressors in and by Adam. 

"Fifth. That Christ had been promised to the fathers 
who received the law, to the end that, knowing their 
sin by the law and their unrighteousness and insuffi- 
ciency, they might desire the coming of Christ to make 
satisfaction for their sins, and to accomplish the law by 
himself. 

"Sixth. That at the time appointed of the Father 
Christ was born, a time when iniquity everywhere 
abounded, to make it manifest that it was not for the 
sake of any good in ourselves, for all were sinners ; but 
that he who is true, might display His grace and mercy 
towards us. 

"Seventh. That Christ is our life, and truth, and 
peace, and righteousness, our Shepherd and advocate, 
our sacrifice and peace, who died for the salvation of all 
who should believe, and rose again for their justification. 

*7T W vv W 7v 7T W 

" Tenth. Moreover, we have ever regarded all the 
inventions of men (in the affairs of religion) as an un 
speakable abomination before God : such as the festival 
days and vigils of saints, and what is called holy water, 
the abstaining from flesh on certain days, and such like 
things ; but above all the masses. 

"Eleventh. We hold in abhorrence all human inven- 
tions, as proceeding from Antichrist, which produce 



282 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

distress, and are prejudicial to the liberty of the mind. 

u Twelfth. We consider the Sacraments as signs of 
holy things, or as the visible emblems of invisible bless- 
ings. We regard it as proper, and even necessary, that 
believers use these symbols or visible forms when it can 
be done. Notwithstanding which, we maintain that be- 
lievers may be saved without these signs, when they 
have neither place nor opportunity of observing them. 

"Thirteenth. We acknowledge no sacraments (as of 
divine appointment) but baptism and the Lord's supper. 

"Fourteenth. We honor the secular powers with sub- 
jection, obedience, promptitude and payment." 

Now, sir, in calling our attention to the above articles, 
written A. D. 1120, and especially the tenth article, 
which says, " we regard the inventions of men as an 
unspeakable abomination before God," they then ask us 
in the name of heaven to tell them who were the inven- 
tors of the innovations upon primitive doctrines ? Who 
invented Sabbath schools, theological schools, missionary 
boards, home and foreign missions, fat salaries, publish- 
ing societies, together with all the other religious devices 
and abominations to the church of Christ, after the so- 
called means and instrumentality salvation ? 

They answer, Not the Old Baptists ; but that the Old 
Baptists are the only people to-day that observe the 
tenth article quoted, who " regard the inventions of men 
as an unspeakable abomination before God." And that 
with the above proofs it is absurd for our missionary 
friends to even feign to be the original Primitive Baptists. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 283 

They further claim that there is no other denomination 
that regards the Missionary Baptists as being the Primi- 
tive Baptists, except themselves, and that many of the 
intelligent of their own people either admit that they 
are not the Primitive Baptists, or that they have con- 
scientious scruples about it. 

"The Concord Association split on doctrine about 
twenty years past ; both bodies called themselves Con- 
cord ; the Calvinistic party claimed to be first, and the 
Arminian division was accounted the second." — Bene- 
dict, page 801. " The Arminians derive their name and 
origin from James Arminius." — Mosheim, page 279. 
"The Arminians were so called from James Arminius, 
who died at Leyden, in Holland, in 1609, just a hundred 
years after Calvin was born. Arminius warmly op- 
posed Calvin's notions respecting predestination." — Bene- 
dict, page 41. " The reader must keep in mind that in 
this day those were called Arminians who held to the 
universal provisions of the gospel, or that the atonement 
of Christ was general in its nature." — Benedict, page 61. 

''General Baptists. — This term has from the begin- 
ning of the Eeformation been applied to that class of 
Baptists in England who have held universal redemp- 
tion. The Particular Baptists are strictly Calvinistic in 
their creed. But those who are called General, lean to 
the Arminian system. The former hold that Christ died 
for the elect only, while the latter plead that the Savior 
by his death and sufferings has made salvation possible 
for all." — Benedict, page 224. 



281 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

"The Baptists in England are divided into General 
and Particular, and have been since the Eeformation. 
Their principal difference is in point of doctrine." — Bene- 
dict, page 189. 

"From what we have said, various useful observa- 
tions by way of inference might be made, but we shall 
only mention two : First, that according to the gospel, 
the atonement of Christ did not extend to every individ- 
ual of the human race ; and, secondly, that the gospel 
contains no conditional offers of salvation." — Philadel- 
phia Baptist Minutes, page 311, from 1707 to 1807. 

They ask, Do the Missionary Baptists believe and 
preach this doctrine to-day ? Do they ascribe to God all 
the glory, "who hath saved us, and called us with a 
holy calling, not according to our works, but according 
to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in 
Christ Jesus before the world began?" — II Tim. i. 9. 
"We may mention these, because some in our days 
seem to favor such notions, and some others that tend 
to mar and go a great way towards sullying the glory of 
the gospel. 

" In regard to the first, if atonement was made for all, 
it was God's intention that it should ; that intention 
must have its full effect ; the effect must be that all 
must and will be saved. If Christ answered the de- 
mands of law and justice for all, and paid the price in 
full, then there must be guiltless persons in hell for 
want of being made meet for heaven. Christ has done 
his part, but the Spirit declines doing his. Why God 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 285 

should appoint satisfaction to be made for all, and after- 
wards not renew and sanctify all, and bring them to 
heaven, must be very strange, and utterly inconsistent 
with the glory and perfections of Him who does nothing 
in vain ; who never does a part without doing the whole; 
who always finishes what He begins. It is manifest 
from the Holy Scriptures that Christ made atonement 
for his people. l He was taken from prison and from 
judgment : and who shall declare his generation ? for he 
was cut off out of the land of the living : for the trans- 
gression of my people was he stricken.' — Is. liii. 8. 
* Blessed be the Lord God of Israel : for he hath visited 
and redeemed His people.' — Luke i. 68. ' As the Father 
knoweth me, even so know I the Father : and I lay 
down my life for the sheep.' — John x. 15. 'But ye be- 
lieve not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto 
you.' — John x. 26. 1 1 pray for them : I pray not for 
the world, but for them which thou hast given me ; for 
they are thine. ' — John xviii. 9 ( And again, I will put 
my trust in Him. And again, Behold, I and the children 
which God hath given me.' — Heb. ii. 13. 'And they 
sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the 
book and to open the seals thereof : for thou wast slain 
and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every 
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.' — Eev. 
v. 9. 

"As to the seccnd, to make salvation conditional, 
would rob God of His sovereignty, and make His glory 
to depend on man, while at the same time it would give 



286 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

room for boasting. It would also convert the gospel of 
the grace of God into a new law. Is the law of works 
to be preferred to the covenant of grace ? If it be of 
grace, says the apostle, then it is no more of works, 
otherwise grace is no more grace. What ! make our 
happiness depend on man ? If we will do part, God will 
do the rest ? Alas ! what can man do in the business of 
his salvation, first or last, to merit or promote it ? Is he 
altogether dependent on God ? Yea, verily, that at every 
step, in the beginning and progress of the glorious work, 
he may cry grace, grace ; and whosoever glorieth, let 
him glory in the Lord." — Minutes Philadelphia Baptist 
Association, from 1707 to 1807, page 311. 

Now, Sir, these Old Baptists claim that they believe, 
preach and teach this identical doctrine to-day, and that 
it has been handed down in regular successsion from 
one generation to another from the days of the Apostles 
to the present. But that the Missionary Baptists do not 
believe, preach nor teach it this way ; but that they be- 
lieve, preach and teach a conditional salvation, based 
upon the means and conditions or instrumentalities of 
the creature. And that if the Missionary Baptists do 
not believe in this means and instrumentality salvation, 
in the name of heaven what use have they got for Mr. 
Bacon's report on Sabbath schools, and similar reports in 
principle in all their religious magazines of the nation ? 

They admit that in a few instances they have heard 
Missionary Baptist ministers preach and contend for the 
principles of election and unconditional salvation, but 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 287 

that in every instance they soon preached themselves 
out of the pastorate care of their churches, or were 
visited by a committee of their church, and remon- 
strated with, and censured for teaching a dangerous 
doctrine, and were derided as "hard shells," and com- 
pelled to retract, and denoumce truth as being error, or 
shelter under the banner of the Primitive Baptists. 
In further proof of their succession from the Apostles to 
the present, they bring up the confession of faith as 
adopted by the Baptists of Wales in 1689. 

" Third Article. God's Decree. Those of mankind who 
are predestinated to life, God, before the foundation of 
the world was laid, according to His eternal and immut- 
able purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure 
of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, 
out of his mere free grace and love, without any other 
thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving 
him thereunto. 

" As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so He 
hath by the eternal and most free purpose of His will 
foreordained all the means thereunto ; wherefore they 
who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by 
Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ, by his 
Spirit working in due season are justified, adopted, sanc- 
tified, and kept by his power through faith unto salva- 
tion. c According as he hath chosen us in him before 
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and 
without blame before him in love.'— Eph. i. 1. 'I 
speak not of you all ; I know whom I have chosen : but 



288 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

that the Scriptures may be fulfilled, he that eateth 
bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.' — 
John xiii. 18. l For whom He did foreknow, He also did 
predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, 
that he might be the first born among many brethren. 
Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; 
and whom He called, them He also justified ; and whom 
He justified, them He also glorified. ' — Eom. viii. 29, 30. 
' For by grace are ye saved, through faith : and that 
not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God.' — Eph. ii. 8. 
' But we are bound to give thanks always to God for 
you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath 
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through 
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.' — 
2 Thes. ii. 13 l Sanctify them through thy truth : thy 
word is truth.' — 'And for their sakes I sanctify myself, 
that they also might be sanctified through the truth.' — 
John xvii. 17, 19. 

"Fourth.— The FaU of Man, and Sin. Although God 
created man upright and perfect, and gave to him a right- 
eous law, yet he did not long, abide in this honor, but 
did willfully transgress the command given unto him, in 
eating the forbidden fruit ; which God was pleased ac- 
cording to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having 
purposed to order it to His own glory. Our first parents 
by this sin fell from their original righteousness and com- 
munion with God, whereby death came upon all ; all be- 
coming dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties 
and parts of soul and body. They being the root, cor- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 289 

rupted nature was conveyed to all their posterity, de- 
scending from them by ordinary generation, being now 
conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath. ( And 
the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every 
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but of the 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat 
of it ; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
surely die.' — Gen. ii. 16, 17. 'And he said, Who told 
thee that thou wast naked ? Hast thou eaten of the tree 
whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat ? 
And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be 
with me, she gave me of the tree,- and I did eat. And the 
Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast 
done ? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, 
and I did eat.' — Gen. hi. 11, 12, 13. ' Wherefore, as by 
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, 
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. 
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even 
over them that had not sinned after the similitude of 
Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was 
to come.' — Rom. v. 12, 14. ' The heart is deceitful above 
all things, and desperately wicked : who can know it ?' 
— Jer. xvii. 9. ' Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and 
in sin did my mother conceive me.' — Psa. Ii. 5. ' Among 
whom also we all had our conversation in times past in 
the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and 
of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, 
even as others.' — Eph. ii. 3. 

"Fifth.— God's Covenant. — Man having brought him- 



290 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

self under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the 
Lord to reveal the covenant of grace, wherein He freely 
offered unto sinners lif e and salvation by Jesus Christ, 
requiring of them faith in him, that they might be saved, 
and promising to give unto all those that are ordained 
unto eternal life His Holy Spirit, to make them willing 
and able to believe. ' For as many as are of the works 
of the law are under the curse ; for it is written, Cursed 
is every one that continueth not in all things which are 
written in the book of the law to do them.' — Gal. iii. 10. 
' That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He 
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' — John 
iii. 15, 16. 

"Sixth — Christ as the Mediator. — The Son of God, the 
second person in the Holy Trinity, being very and eter- 
nal God, the brightness of the Father's glory, of one sub- 
stance, and equal with Him who made the world, who 
upholdeth and governeth all things He hath made, did, 
when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man's 
nature, with all the essential properties and common in- 
firmities thereof, yet without sin ; so that the whole 
perfect and distinct natures were inseparably joined to- 
gether in one person, which person is the very God and 
very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between 
God and man. ' And the Word was made flesh, and 
dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as 
of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 291 

truth.' — John i. 14. ' But when the fullness of the time 
was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, 
made under the law.' — Gal. iv. 4. ' For what the law 
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God 
sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and 
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.' — Kom. viii. 3. 'For 
we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with 
the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin.' — Heb. iv. 15. 
6 For there is one God, and one mediator between God 
and men, the man Christ Jesus.' — I Tim. ii. 5. 

"Seventh. — Redemption. — The Lord Jesus Christ, by 
his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself , which he, 
through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, 
hath fully satisfied the justice of God, procured recon- 
ciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance in the 
kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father hath 
given unto him. 

" To all of those for whom Christ hath obtained eternal 
redemption, he doth certainly apply and communicate 
the same making intercession for them, uniting them to 
himself by his Spirit, revealing unto them in and by the 
word the mystery of salvation, persuading them to believe 
and obey, governing their hearts by his word and Spirit, 
overcoming all their enemies by his almighty power and 
wisdom, in such manner and ways as are most consonant 
to his wonderful and unsearchable dispensation, and all 
of free and absolute grace, without any condition fore- 
seen in them to procure it. ' For by one offering he hath 



292 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

perfected for ever them that are sanctified.' — Heb. x. 14. 
'Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through 
faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the 
remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance 
of God. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness : 
that he might be just, and the justifier of him which be- 
lieveth in Jesus.' — Kom. hi. 25, 26. ' As thou hast given 
him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life 
to as many as thou hast given him. ' — John xvii. 2. ' And 
for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament, 
that by means of death for the redemption of the trans- 
gressions that were under the first Testament, they which 
are called might receive the promise of eternal inheri- 
tance.' — Heb. ix. 15. ( In the last day, that great day of 
the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me and drink.' — John vii. 37. 
4 1 pray for them : I pray not for the world, but for them 
which thou hast given me; for they are thine.' — John 
xvii. 9. ' But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if 
so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any 
man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. ' 
' For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are 
the Sons of God'.— Eom. viii. 9, 14. 'For He must 
reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. 
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.' — I 
Cor. xv. 25, 26. ' The wind bloweth where it listeth, 
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every 
one that is born of the Spirit.' — John iii. 8. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 293 

"Eighth — The will. — Man by his fall into a state of 
sin hath wholly lost all will to any spiritual good accom- 
panying salvation ; so a natural man, being altogether 
averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his 
own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself 
thereunto. 

" When God converts a sinner and translates him into 
the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bond- 
age under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely 
to will and to do that which is spiritually good. ' Be- 
cause the carnal mind is enmity against God ; for it is 
not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So 
then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.' — Eom. 
viii. % 8. ' No man can come to me, except the Father 
which hath sent me draw him ; and I will raise him up 
at the last day.' — John vi. 44. ( Who hath delivered us 
from the power of darkness, and has translated us into 
the kingdom of His dear Son. In whom we have re- 
demption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.' — 
Col. i. 13, 14. c If the Son therefore shall make you free, 
ye shall be free indeed.' — John viii. 36. c For the law of 
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from 
the law of sin and death.' — Eom. viii. 2. c For by grace 
are ye saved, through faith ; and that not of yourselves; 
it is the gift of God.' — Eph. ii. 8. ' Who hath saved us, 
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our 
works, but according to His own purpose and grace, 
which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world be- 
gan.'— II Tim. i. 9. 



294 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

"Ninth. — Effectual Calling. — Those whom God hath 
predestinated unto life, He is pleased in His appointed and 
accepted time effectually to call by His word and Spirit, 
out of the state of sin and death in which they are by 
nature, to the grace of salvation by Jesus Christ. 
' Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also 
called ; and whom He called, them He also justified ; and 
whom He justified, them He also glorified.' — Eom. viii. 
30. c But we are bound to give thanks always to God 
for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath 
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through 
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. 
Whereunto He called you by our gospel, to the obtaining 
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.' — II Thes. ii. 13, 14. 
* According as He hath chosen us in Him before the 
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and 
without blame before Him in love. Having predestin- 
ated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to 
himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.' — 
Eph. i. 4, 5. 

" Tenth. — Justification. — Those whom God effectually 
calls, He also freely justifieth, accounting and accepting 
their persons as righteous : not for anything wrought in 
them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone. " Be- 
ing justified freely by His grace through the redemption 
that is in Jesus Christ.' — Eom. iii. 24. i Moreover, whom 
He did predestinate, them He also called ; and whom He 
called, them He also justified ; and whom He justified, 
them He also glorified.' — Kom. viii. 30. 'For if by one 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 295 

man's offence death reigned by one, much more they 
which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of 
righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ.' 
'For as by one man's disobedience many were made 
sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made 
righteous.' — Rom. v. 17, 19. 

"Eleventh. — Adoption. — All those that are justified, 
God vouchsafed in and for the sake of His only Son, Jesus 
Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption, by 
which they are taken into the number and enjoy the 
liberties and privileges of the children of God. ' Having 
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus 
Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of His 
will.' — Eph. i. 5. 'To redeem them that were under the 
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And 
because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His 
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' — Gal. iv. 5, 6. 
6 Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, 
but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household 
of God.' — Eph. ii. 19. ' For ye have not received the 
spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the 
spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.'— 
Rom. viii. 15. 

" Twelfth. — They who are united to Christ, effectually 
called and regenerated, having a new heart and a new 
spirit created in them, through the virtue of Christ's 
death and resurrection, are also further sanctified, really 
and personally, through the same virtue, by his word 
and Spirit dwelling in them. — ' That he would grant you 



296 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened 
with might by his Spirit in the inner man.' ' And to 
know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that 
ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.' — Eph. iii. 
16, 19." — Belcher's Religious Denominations, page 141, 
setting forth the Baptist Articles of faith, by the 
founders of the church in Wales, in the year 1689. 

Now, Sir, they ask us in the name of heaven to tell 
them who holds to and puts into practice these articles 
of faith to-day, setting forth unconditional salvation on 
the part of the creature, except the Old School or Primi- 
tive Baptists. And that our Missionary Baptist friends 
dare not in the face of truth and testimony claim the 
name, Primitive Baptist ; for all honest historians know 
that they have only had an existence since the year 1832, 
when they departed from the above articles of faith, by 
precept and example, and set up under the popular name 
of Missionary Baptists ; imbibing- the popular idea of 
James Arminius and conditional salvation. Hence, their 
numbers have grown to immense proportions, many of 
whom are members from emotions of pride and popular- 
ity, and are destitute of the grace of God in their hearts, 
not being able to give a satisfactory reason for their 
hope in Christ Jesus. Others are among them because 
they did not have the moral fortitude to resist the excite- 
ment and moral suasion that was brought to bear upon 
them at some Arminian excitement meeting ; while 
some noble Christians have been caught in the net of 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 297 

their device who are too proud to retract, lest they be 
derided as " hard shells ." 

They then call our attention to the articles adopted by 
the " General Association of Kentucky Baptists" which 
is a Missionary Baptist body that has been organized 
since the split of the Baptists of 1832, and ask us to read 
it carefully, and see how it chimes in with the Articles 
upon which the Philadelphia Baptist Association was 
organized, and then compare it with the Articles of the 
Waldenses, and the Articles of the church in Wales, and 
the Articles of the present Primitive Baptists. And they 
then ask us as honest men to tell them who has departed 
from the faith of the ancient Baptists, and who at present 
with all of these testimonials, has a bona fide title to the 
name, Primitive Baptist. 

"Article First. — This body shall be called the General 
Association of Kentucky Baptists. 

"Article Second. — The payment of thirty dollars con- 
stitutes a life membership. 

" Article Third. — It shall be the duty of every member 
to obtain leave of absence before leaving the Association, 
and the Secretary shall give no certificate of membership 
to a member who has not this leave, or who does not re- 
main until the adjournment of the meeting. 

" Article Fourth — The business of this body shall be 
to promote State missions ; also the Home and Foreign 
mission work under the Boards of the Southern Baptist 
Convention ; also Bible and Book Colportage, Sunday 
schools, and Literary and Theological seminaries in the 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

State, and to collect and preserve onr denominational 
history; of Kentucky. 

"Article Fifth. — This body shall exercise no ecclesias- 
tical authority. 

' ' Article Sixth. — This body shah, on meeting annually, 
elect by private ballot a Moderator, two Assistant Mod- 
erators, and a Secretary, and Assistant Secretary, whose 
duties shall be such as custom imposes upon their re- 
spective officers. They shall hold their offices until super- 
seded by successors. 

" Article Seventh. — At each annual meeting the body 
shall appoint an Executive Board consisting of fifteen 
members, (five of whom shall constitute a quorum. | to 
conduct its business during the intervals between its an- 
nual meetings. They may appoint a Treasurer, a Cor- 
responding Secretary, an Agent or Agents, and Mission- 
aries and Evangelists : shall fix and pay their salaries, 
and report their doings annually to this Board." 

On page 13. is the following, under the head, "The 
Total Work Performed by the General Association a 
Auxiliary Bodies: Employed twenty-six missionaries 
who preached about three thousand sermons, organized 
nine churches, fifteen Sabbath schools, and had one 
thousand and nine members added to the churches. We 
raised for the support of these missionaries thirteen 
thousand six hundred and seventy-one dollars and ninety- 
two cents." 

They then ask liberty to quote from Eld. J. B. Hardy, 
of Kentucky, who in a debate with the Rev. Isham E. 



StfPPOSED INTERVIEW. &99 

Wallace, of Missionary Baptist notoriety, upon church 
identity, who admitted that his people would endorse 
him, and consequently would endorse the foregoing 
articles. Eld. Hardy said, (in reference to the above 
articles and Association.) " Xow, brethren, if any of us 
should want a life membership in this association it can 
be had for the sum of thirty dollars. There is not an in- 
dividual here but knows that such a thing as this is a 
departure from the original principles of the Baptists. 
There is not a single individual. I will venture to say. 
within the sound of my voice, but knows that is so. If 
we have not thirty dollars, that misfortune can be reme- 
died, it would seem, from what follows, for here is what it 
says : ' Annual members may take seats upon the pay- 
ment of one dollar. Churches and associations auxiliary 
to this body, by contributing to its objects annually, are 
entitled to representation. ' I want to ask this intelligent 
congregation, (for I stand before you to-day and say 
as an honest man, before God, I do not want anything 
but the truth. • was any such thing as this ever known 
among the ancient Baptists ! I say we do not believe in 
such as this, and the Old Baptists did not ; and conse- 
quently we stand on their doctrine. vTe have not de- 
parted from the original landmark upon which the Bap- 
tists anciently stood. I have been reading histories con- 
cerning these things for several years, and I have never 
yet seen anything like this, where the admission into an 
association of Baptists was dependent upon the payment 
of one dollar cash in hand. I have never seen where a 



300 SUPPOSED DTTEKVIEW. 

Baptist could become a life member of any association 
on the payment of the sum of thirty dollars. I want to 
show these Missionary Baptists their inconsistency here. 
I want to show them what they are doing, for I am sure 
they have not considered this thing. I know very well 
that the people in these days and times are led altogether 
too much by their teachers, and do not look and think 
enough for themselves. Brother Smith up here asserted 
publicly that the missionaries had such things among 
them, and they gave him the he, and he had to prove it 
conclusively before they would acknowledge it. Many 
of- these Missionary Baptists are in the dark as to these 
things ; they do not know to-day what is the doctrine of 
then- denomination, but they depend entirely on their 
preachers. Well, as to this association you can become 
a life member for thirty dollars. But suppose after hav- 
ing paid that sum of money a member should turn out 
to be an immoral man or woman, a drunkard, or guilt y 
of any great wickedness, what are they going to do with 
him i He has certainly paid his money and is a life 
member of the association. After having been admitted 
for life, can they throw him out?" — Debate on Church 
Identity, Hardy vs. Wallace, pages '244 to 24:7. 

They then give us the date of the first Sunday school 
that was ever taught in the world, that we have any 
history of, and tell us who taught it, and that its first 
purpose was grand and commendable, but that it was 
soon perverted into a scheme of political and religious 
heresy by designing persons, who were ambitious to ex- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 301 

• 

eel in the particular tenets of their political and religious 
aspirations. And it is to-day galvanized with celebra- 
tions and May-day festivals, to commit and enchant the 
young and tender minds of each generation for religious 
preferment and political supremacy. — (See Belcher, page 
998.) And you will find that Bobert Raike, of Gloucester, 
England, in the year 1781, established the first Sunday 
school that history gives any account of. It would seem 
that Raike was possessed with a warm and sympathetic 
heart for the poor, and that he was moved by sympathy 
and compassion to bestow some of his means upon a 
concourse of poor, ragged girls and boys, whose parents 
were too poor to educate, and perhaps some of them with- 
out parents, who infested the streets with their rudeness 
on each Sabbath day, to the annoyance of the populace. 
Raike, in his sympathy for their rude and imperfect 
training, determined if possible to induce them and their 
parents to suffer him to give them the rudiments of a 
literary education (not religious education), by sending 
them to school each Sabbath at his expense. Raike 
rented a room and hired teachers to promote the educa- 
tion of these poor, penniless children. ! what a noble 
act from a good and generous man, and how worthy of 
emulation. But this is not the object of the Sabbath 
schools of to-day : then object seems to be very different 
to-day, and purports to the engendering of religious 
sectarian preferment and hatred toward those who honest- 
ly oppose their corruptions, but who desire, as did Raike, 
the literary accomplishment of all the children of the 



302 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

nation, but desire to leave them free and untramnieled 
from sectarian prejudices, allowing them the unlimited 
prerogative to come to their own conclusions in matters 
of religion, when they have minds sufficient to reason 
for themselves, and then allow them to worship God 
without restraint, according to the dictates of their 
own conscience, without any advantage being taken of 
their young and tender minds to entangle them, by de- 
signing sectarian lords, to some particular religious 
creed. 

We here quote from Elder Hardy in one of his replies 
to the Rev. Mr. Wallace, on the subject of Sabbath 
schools. Elder Hardy said, "Such things as these prac- 
ticed now-a-days, were unknown among the Baptists. 
We, as Old Baptists, do not practice these things, and 
the Baptists anciently did not practice them. People 
can have Sunday schools if they want to, so far as I am 
concerned ; but the point that I make is that the Bap- 
tists in the olden days did not have such things. The 
first Sunday school in America was organized on Jan- 
uary the 11th, 1791, and the first Sunday school in Eng- 
land was organized, we find, in 1781. It must be 
admitted that Baptists were in existence long previous 
to either of these dates. And in that connection I will 
refer to a pamphlet that I have here, which is an ac- 
count of the first national Baptist Sunday School Con- 
vention, the first national convention that these people 
ever had. I will read this in order to show you, when 
any of you people go to these Sunday schools, what you 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 303 

teach and what you are taught, and what the intention 
of these institutions is. 

" This is an extract from an address of the. Rev. A. E. 
Dickinson, from Virginia : 

" ' Brethren, let me urge you, as I would seek to urge 
myself, to greater earnestness in the work of saving little 
children. I would urge it by all the joys that come to 
us in this world from saving little children.' — Page 26. 
' I heard of a Sunday school superintendent that had 
been out looking up little ones and bringing them into 
the Sunday school, where one after another was con- 
verted. One day he was sent for to see a little child. 
The little boy said to him, ' I want to thank you, the 
last thing before I leave this world. When I go to 
heaven. I am going to tell Jesus it was you that put me 
in the way to heaven. It was you who saved me ; and 
I am going to look out for you when you get up there. 
I will meet you. and take you by the hand, and carry 
you to Jesus, and say, Lord Jesus, here is the man that 
put me in the way to heaven.' 0, I tell you, that super- 
intendent went away with his heart almost bursting 
with joy at the thought of meeting that little fellow up 
at the pearly gate ! If we are faithful, if these Christian 
workers from the Xorth and South, and East and West, 
are faithful in this work, laboring to save the little 
children, when you get up yonder at the shining gate 
you will be surprised ; for they will come from every 
direction. Every one will want to take you by the hand 
and thev will say, ' Come, I want to carrv vou to Jesus.' 



304 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW, 

They will say, ' Lord Jesus, here is the man, and here is 
the woman, that put me in the way to heaven.' 

"Now, did the ancient Baptists ever have any such 
thing as set out here ? Did the ancient Baptists ever 
tolerate such a thing as this ? Certainly not ; and let 
me tell you, true Baptists to-day will not allow it. These 
are not the means by which sinners are saved at all. 
Here we are told of one of these little cherubs going to 
heaven and telling Jesus this and that, just as though 
Jesus did not know anything at all about it. The ques- 
tion arises right here, is it our business to teach little 
children respecting the great character of God in this 
manner ? 

" I will refer to one of their Sunday school papers, 
showing you what these peoi^ teach little children. 
The caption is ' Questions for^he Youngest.' ' Little . 
ones, Jesus loves you. He died to save you. Ought you 
not to love him ? Ought you not to try to live for him 
and please him ? If you love him, you will. How mean 
and selfish it is for us to live just to please ourselves, 
and not to please Jesus. If we love him, we will not do 
so. If we love him we will be new creatures, and try to 
do what will please Jesus all the time. Those who do 
not love God are God's enemies. God is angry with 
them. Jesus came and died to make God and them 
friends. For his sake God is willing to forgive and save 
them, if they will let him. They beg you to be recon- 
ciled to God.' I do not believe God's ministers ever use 
any such arguments to children, or to anybody else. It 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 305 

is not what God's preachers were sent to do, to tell them 
that He would save them if they would only let him. 
Certainly such ideas were never promulgated in ancient 
days. There is nothing in the Bible that authorizes any 
such thing to be preached. For God's sake, brother 
Wallace, do not talk about the Primitive Baptists teach- 
ing little children any such stuff as this. What wonder 
is it if I do not send my children to Sunday school ? I 
certainly do not want my children to be taught any such 
nonsense as I find here ; and it is just such as this, I have 
no doubt, that is found to-day in the Sunday schools. 
For my part I do not want my children to be taught 
that God made them, and after He did make them that 
they are more powerful than God Himself." — Debate on 
Church Identity, by Hardy and Wallace, pages 277 to 
279. 

These Old Baptists further claim that after the mar- 
riage of the Arminian Baptists to the Predestinarian 
Baptists (prior to the year 1792), the Arminian element, 
as usual, became much the strongest, and organized the 
first Baptist Missionary Society that was ever known 
among the Baptists from the days of the apostles to the 
time of its organization in the year 1792, which they say 
was the entering wedge to the divorce that took place in 
the year 1832. They then refer us to the "Life and 
death of the Rev. Andrew Fuller" page 139. "A resolution 
was printed in this year's Letter, that a plan be prepared 
against the next ministers' meeting at Kettering, for 
forming a Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel 



306 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

among the Heathen. Brother Carey generously engaged 
to devote all the profits that might arise from his late 
publications on this interesting subject to the use of 
such a society. This society was actually formed in 
Mrs. Beeby Wallis' back parlor, on October 2d, 1792, 
as all the friends of the Baptist Mission know." 

Now, sir, they ask us if this was not a departure from 
primitive customs, and if any of the ancient Predestin- 
arian Baptists in any of their circular letters or articles 
of faith ever held out the idea that heathens were dying 
and going to hell for want of the gospel. They say that 
it cannot be shown from sacred, nor profane history, 
and that the Old Baptists of to-day occupy the same 
grounds as the Primitive Christians, and that they justly 
have a bona fide title to the name Primitive Baptist. 

They say that there is some discrepancy as to who 
constituted the first Baptist church in America ; some 
contending that Dr. Clark was the founder of the first 
Baptist church, and some contending for Eoger Wil- 
liams ; hence, the enemies of the Old Baptists claim that 
there is a missing link in their apostolic succession that 
cannot be repaired. But they claim that this discrep- 
ancy cuts no figure in the case, as it is principle that 
they are contending for ; and admitting that both of 
these ministers did establish churches near the same 
date, that the principle was the same, and that history 
amply proves that they and their churches afterwards 
became united. 

It is further claimed that the baptism of Roger Wil- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 307 

liams was not valid, because he was baptized by a lay- 
member, who was not a legal administrator of the ordi- 
nance ; but many of them say that in the absence of a 
legal administrator, and under circumstances where one 
could not be procured, and in the solemn and humble 
manner that history records the baptism of Eoger Wil- 
liams, he and his brethren calling upon the God of 
heaven to solemnize the act of baptism to each of them, 
and unite them into a church after the pattern of Christ, 
was by faith sufficient testimony to the Lord of their 
sincerity, and hence the legality of their baptism was by 
faith accepted of the Lord, and was as valid in the sight 
of the Lord, as was the baptism of the Savior by John, 
who had not been baptized by regular succession ; hence, 
if John's baptism was valid, so was Ezekiel Holliman's, 
who baptized Roger Williams. 

It is further claimed by some historians that Eoger 
Williams afterwards went off religiously with the Quak- 
ers. "Mr. Benedict thinks he (Williams) remained 
pastor of the little church four years and then joined the 
Quakers." "Dr. Clark was then the founder of the first 
Baptist church in America, at Newport, in 1638," and 
that the church set up by Williams was in 1639. — See 
Cox's History, page 530. 

These Old Baptists do not deny that Dr. Clark organ- 
ized a church as well as Williams ; but they deny his 
(Williams') affiliation with the Quakers, and propose to 
prove by standard historians that the accusation is a 
persecution, although corroborated by some historians, 



308 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

and that the preponderance of historical testimony is in 
favor of Eoger Williams living and dying in the faith 
and fellowship of the Old Baptists, as well as being in 
favor of his being the founder of the first Baptist church 
in the original colonies. 

" At a session of the general court of the colony, held 
in 1631, a law was passed restricting the right of suf- 
frage. It was enacted that none but members of the 
church should be permitted to vote at the colonial elec- 
tions. The choice of governor, deputy-governor, and 
assistant councilors was thus placed in the hands of a 
small minority. Nearly three-fourths of the people were 
excluded from exercising the rights of freemen. Taxes 
were levied for the support of the gospel ; oaths of 
obedience to the magistrates were required ; attendance 
on public worship was enforced by law ; none but church 
members were eligible to offices of trust. It is strange 
indeed that the very men who had so recently through 
perils by sea and land escaped with only their lives, to 
find religious freedom in another continent, should have 
begun their career with intolerance and proscription. 
The only excuse that can be found for the gross incon- 
sistency and injustice of such legislation is that bigotry 
was the vice of the age rather than of the Puritans. 

' ' One manly voice was lifted up against this odious 
statute. It was the voice of young Roger Williams, 
minister of Salem. To this man belongs the shining 
honor of being the first in America or in Europe to pro- 
claim the full gospel of religious toleration. He declared 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 309 

to his people that the conscience of man may in no wise 
be bound by the authority of the magistrates ; that civil 
government has only to do with civil matters, such as 
the collection of taxes, the restraint and punishment of 
crime, and the protection of all men in the enjoyment 
of equal rights. For these noble utterances he was 
obliged to quit the ministry of the church at Salem, and 
retire to Plymouth. Finally, in 1634, he wrote a paper 
in which the declaration was made that grants of land, 
though given by the King of England, were invalid 
until the natives were justly recompensed. This was 
equivalent to saying that the colonial charter itself was 
void, and that the people were really living upon the 
lands of the Indians. Great excitement was occasioned 
by the publication, and Williams consented that for the 
sake of public peace the paper should be burned. But 
he continued to teach his doctrines, saying that compul- 
sory attendance at religious worship, as well as taxation 
for the support of the ministry, was contrary to the 
teachings of the gospel. When arraigned for these bad 
doctrines, he crowned his offences by telling the court- 
that a test of church membership in a voter or a public 
officer was as ridiculous as the selection of a doctor of 
physic or the pilot of a ship on account of his skill in 
theology. These assertions raised such a storm in court 
that "Williams was condemned for heresy and banished 
from the colony. In the dead of winter he left home 
and became an exile in the desolate forest. For fourteen 
weeks he wandered on through the snow, sleeping at 



310 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

night on the ground or in a hollow tree, living on 
parched corn, acorns and roots. He carried with him 
one precious treasure, a private letter from Governor 
Winthrop, giving him words of cheer and encourage- 
ment. Nor did the Indians fail to show their gratitude 
to the man who had so nobly defended their rights. In 
the country of the Wampanoags he was kindly enter- 
tained. 

" Massasoit -invited him to his cabin at Pokanoket, 
and Canonicus, king of the Narragansetts, received him 
as a friend and brother. On the left bank of Blackstone 
Eiver near the head of Narragansett Bay a resting 
place was at last found ; the exile pitched his tent, and 
with the opening of spring planted a field and built the 
first house in the village of Seekonk. Soon the informa- 
tion came that he was still within the territory of 
Plymouth colony, and another removal became necessary. 
With five companions who had joined him in banish- 
ment he embarked in a canoe, passed down the river and 
crossed to the west side of the bay. Here he was safe ; 
his enemies could hunt him no farther. 

"A tract of land was honorably purchased from Canoni- 
cus : and in June of 1636, the illustrious founder of 
Rhode Island laid out the city of Providence. 

" Meanwhile, his teachings were bearing fruit in Mas- 
sachusetts. In 1634 a representative form of govern- 
ment was established against the oppression of the 
clergy. On election-day the voters, now numbering 
between three and four hundred, were called together, 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 311 

and the learned Cotton preached powerfully and long 
against the proposed change. The assembly listened 
attentively, and then went on with the election. To 
make reform complete, a Ballot-Box was substituted for 
the old method of public voting. The restriction on the 
right of suffrage was the only remaining bar to a per- 
fect system of self-government in New England." Bid- 
path 9 s History of the United States, pages 128 to 130. 

"The banishment of Eoger Williams, instead of 
bringing peace, brought strife and dissension to the peo- 
ple of Massachusetts. The ministers were stern and ex- 
acting, every shade of popular belief was closely scrut- 
inized, the slightest departure from orthodox doctrine 
was met with a charge of heresy, and to be a heretic 
was to become an outcast. Still the advocates of free 
opinion multiplied. The clergy, notwithstanding their 
great influence among the people, felt insecure. Beligi- 
ous debates became the order of the day. Every sermon 
had to pass the ordeal of review and criticism. 

" Most prominent among those who were said to be ' as 
bad as Eoger Williams, or worse,' was Mrs. Anne 
Hutchinson, a woman of genius who had come over in 
the ship with Sir Henry Vam. She desired the privilege 
of speaking at the weekly debates, and was refused. 
Wornen had no business at these assemblies, said the 
elders. Indignant at this, she became the champion of 
her sex, and declared that the ministers who were de- 
frauding women of the gospel were no better than 
Pharisees, She called meetings of her friends, spoke 



312 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

much in public and pleaded with great fervor for the 
full freedom of conscience. The liberal doctrines of the 
exiled Williams were reaffirmed with more power and 
eloquence than ever. Many of the magistrates were 
converted to the new beliefs. The governor himself 
espoused the cause of Mrs. Hutchinson, and a majority 
of the people of Boston inclined to her opinions." — Bid- 
path, pages 130 and 131. 

"Mrs Hutchinson and her friends were declared un- 
fit for the society of Christians, and banished from the 
territory of Massachusetts. With a large number of 
friends the exiles wended their way toward the home of 
Eoger Williams." — Ridpath, page 132. 

" Eoger Williams belonged to that most radical body 
of dissenters called Anabaptists. By them the validity 
of infant baptism was denied. Williams himself had 
been baptized in infancy ; but his views in regard to the 
value of the ceremony had undergone a change during 
his ministry at Salem. Now that he had freed himself 
from all foreign authority, both of church and state, he 
conceived it to be his duty to receive a second baptism. 
But who should perform the ceremony ? Ezekiel Holli- 
man, a layman, was selected for the sacred duty. Wil- 
liams meekly received the rite at the hands of his friend, 
and then in turn baptized him and ten other exiles of 
the colony. Such was the organization of the first Bap- 
tist church in America." — Ridpath, page 193. 

They then refer us to McCabe's Centennial History of 
the United States, (pages 172 to 179,) which testifies to 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 313 

the same facts in regard to Roger Williams and Mrs. 
Anne Hutchinson, and their protests against the magis- 
trates controlling and blending Christianity to suit the 
convenience of the church members who were only 
allowed suffrage in election. Also setting forth their 
banishment from religious society as heretics for their 
religious opinions. 

They then carry us to Grimshaw's History of the 
Eevolutionary war, and the first settling of the colonies. 
"The Anabaptists were the next objects of persecution. 
Many of these were disfranchised, and some were ban- 
ished. But as oppression again created what it was in- 
tended to destroy, the court judged it expedient to with- 
draw it, and persecution for a while ceased." — Grim- 
shaw, page 55. 

" This fanatical spirit continued to increase. But the 
next transaction was more puerile than injurious ; rather 
a subject of amusement than a matter of alarm. A 
minister in Salem, named Eoger Williams, having con- 
conceived an aversion to the cross of St. George, a sym- 
bol in the Standard of England, declaimed against it 
with so much vehemence, as a relic of superstition and 
idolatry which ought not to be retained amongst a peo- 
ple so sanctified and pure, that Endicott in a transport 
of zeal cut out the cross from the ensign displayed before 
the governor's gate. This frivolous matter interested 
and divided the colony. Some of the militia were now 
unwilling to follow a standard in which there was a 
cross lest they should do honor to an idol ; others refused 



314 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

to serve under a mutilated banner lest they should be 
suspected of having renounced their allegiance to the 
crown of England. The contest was at length ended by 
a compromise. The cross was retained in the ensigns of 
forts and vessels, but erased from the colors of the 
militia. 

" The restless disposition of Williams had caused his 
banishment from Salem, a circumstance to which is 
owing, in 1636, the foundation of another State : for so 
great was the attachment of his hearers that many ac- 
companied him in his exile." — Grimshaw, pages 48 and 
49. 

Now, sir, they quote these authors not only to prove 
to us that Roger Williams constituted the first Baptist 
church in America, but to show us that we are indebted 
to the Old Baptists for our religious and political freedom 
that we enjoy to-day, through the medium of their 
American antecedent, Roger Williams ; and that the 
persecutions that are heaped upon them by their enemies 
only prove them to be the church of Christ, as exem- 
plified by the persecutions of Roger Williams, Mrs. Anne 
Hutchinson, and all their antecedents back to the apos- 
tles. And that it further exemplifies that their perse- 
cutors would with the same effrontery have the Old Bap- 
tists of to-day exiled, were it not for the laws enacted 
through the influence and examples of Roger Williams 
incouched in the Constitution of the United States guar- 
anteeing to them religious and political freedom. They 
then take the depositions of the Rev. Roswell D. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 315 

Hitchcock, who says, " Baptists — Who hold that a per- 
sonal profession of faith and an immersion in water are 
essential to baptism. They claim that they have existed 
as Christian communities from the days of the apostles, 
and have held pure the doctrines and ordinances of the 
gospel through all ages. The first Baptist church in 
America was founded by Roger Williams, in Providence, 
E. I., in 1639." — HitchcocWs Analysis of the Bible, page 
HIT. Then in order to prove that Mr. Benedict and Mr. 
Cox are not faithful historians, and that they were 
swayed by preferment to persecute Roger Williams as 
being unstable in his fidelity to the Old Baptists, in going 
off religiously with the Quakers, they bring up the most 
authentic Cyclopedia of the nation, and challenge the 
testimony of Mr. Benedict and Mr. Cox. 

" Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode 
Island, born in Wales in 1599, (and not in 1606, as sup- 
posed by Dr. Elton,) died in Rhode Island, in 1683. At 
an early age he went to London, and attracted by his 
shorthand notes of sermons, and of speeches in the Star 
Chamber, the attention of Sir Edward Coke, who sent 
him to Sutton's hospital, now the Charterhouse, of which 
he was elected a scholar, July 25, 1621, and obtained an 
exhibition July 9, 1624. According to Arnold, the his- 
torian of Rhode Island, he was admitted to Pembroke 
College, Cambridge, Jan. 29, 1623, and matriculated pen- 
sioner July 7, 1625. He took the degree of B. A. in Jan- 
uary, 1627. There is a tradition that he studied law ; 
but if so, it could have been for a short time only, for it 



316 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

is certain that he had been a clergyman of the church of 
England, when at the close of 1630 he embarked for 
America. He became a Puritan of the extreme wing, 
and of that* section of the wing whose tendencies toward 
the views of the Baptists were the immediate occasion of 
the rapid rise of that denomination in England. Arriv- 
ing at Boston, Feb. 5, 1631, accompanied by his wife 
Mary, he soon incurred the hostility of the authorities, 
chiefly by denying that the magistrates had a right to 
punish for any but civil offences, and shortly went to 
Salem to become the assistant of Pastor Skelton. The 
general court remonstrated against his settlement there, 
and complained that he had refused ' to join with the con- 
gregation at Boston because they would not make a pub- 
lic declaration of their repentance for having communion 
with the churches of England while they lived there ; ' 
and besides this ' had declared his opinion that the magis- 
trate might not punish a breach of the Sabbath, nor any 
other offence, as it was a breach of the first table.' The 
objections of Williams to the church of England were, 
first, that it was composed of pious and worldly men in- 
discriminately ; and, second, that it assumed authority 
over the conscience, and was persecuting. The first of 
these objections the Puritans of Boston shared theoreti- 
cally with Williams. But while Williams was practi- 
cally a consistent and rigid separatist from the beginning, 
his Puritan brethren were, in his view, chargeable with 
inconsistency and unseemly concessions. The second 
objection assailed the theocracy which his brethren 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 317 

themselves were rearing on the shores of New England. 
His ministry at Salem was brief ; before the close of 
summer persecution obliged him to retire to Plymouth, 
where for two years he was the assistant of the Pastor, 
Ealph Smith. Here, too, he formed acquaintance with 
leading chiefs of the Indians, and gained a knowledge of 
their language. He was invited to return to Salem, and 
become the assistant and then the successor of Skelton ; 
and his enemies affirm that ' in one year's time he filled 
that place with principles of rigid separation, tending to 
Anabaptistry.' In the autumn of 1635 the general court 
banished him from the colony, ordering him to depart 
within six weeks, because he had called in question the 
authority of magistrates in respect to two things, one re- 
lating to the right of the King to appoint and grant the 
lands of the Indians without purchase, and the other to 
the right of the civil power to impose faith and worship. 
On the first of these points Williams at one time made 
explanations that were deemed satisfactory : on the other 
the divergence was hopeless, the ministers who gave 
their advice at the request of the court declaring that 
opinions which would not allow the magistrate to inter- 
meddle, even to restrain a church from heresy or apos- 
tacy, were not to be endured, and he, on the other hand, 
maintaining with inflexible vigor the absolute and eternal 
distinction between the spheres of the civil government 
and the Christian church. In reply to the charges and 
in defence of his views Williams published a pamphlet 
entitled, l Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Ansivered. 9 



318 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

The period allowed him to prepare for his departure had 
been extended to the coming spring. But his doctrines 
were spreading, and his purpose of founding a colony 
close at hand and embodying his principles, had become 
known. It was therefore determined to send him to 
England at once, and a small vessel was despatched to 
Salem to bring him away. But he was forewarned, and 
had left before the vessel arrived. In midwinter, aban- 
doning his friends and his family, ' Sorely tossed for 
fourteen weeks, not knowing what bread or bed did 
mean,' he had gone through the wilderness to the shores 
of the Narragansett. After purchasing lands of Ousame- 
quin on the eastern shore of the Seekonk river, and 
planting his corn, he learned that he was within the 
bounds of Plymouth colony, and set out with five com- 
panions on new explorations. In a canoe they went 
down the stream, turned the extremity of the peninsula, 
and ascended the river which forms its western bound- 
ary, to a spot which tradition has consecrated as their 
landing. ' I having made covenant of peaceable neigh- 
borhood with all the sachems and nations round about 
us/ says Williams, ' and having a sense of God's merci- 
ful providence unto me in my distress, called the place 
Providence, I desired it might be for a shelter for persons 
distressed for conscience. ' The fundamental article of 
government, establishing a pure democracy, with abso- 
lute inhibition of control over the consciences of men, 
which persons admitted to this corporation were required 
to sign, was in these words : ' We whose names are 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 319 

hereunder, desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, 
do promise to subject ourselves, in active or passive obedi- 
ence, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for 
public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major 
consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, 
incorporated together in a town fellowship, and others 
whom they shall admit unto the same, only in civil 
things.' The method of planting the first church in 
Providence, now known as the first Baptist church in 
that city, answers to views touching that matter which 
had been set forth by early English Baptists in Holland, 
fugitives from persecutions in England, who had been 
likewise teachers of Williams in respect to the rights of 
conscience. These Baptists had instituted baptism 
among themselves by authorizing certain of their own 
number to be administrators of the rite. At Providence, 
in March, 1639, Ezekiel Holliman, a layman, first bap- 
tized Williams, and then Williams baptized Holliman, 
'and some ten more.' But Williams seems to have had 
early doubts of the validity of the proceeding ; at any 
rate, he soon withdrew from his associates in this meas- 
ure. Various explanations of his withdrawing have 
been given, and prominent among these the absence of 
' a visible succession ' of authorized administrators of the 
rite of baptism. The history of Eoger Williams, for the 
succeeding half century, is the history of Providence and 
of Ehode Island. The colony was for some years a pure 
democracy, transacting its public business in town meet- 
ings ; but in 1643 Williams was sent to England to pro- 



320 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

cure a charter. He was successful, and returned in 1644. 
On his voyage to England he wrote his ' Key into the 
Languages of America,' including observations on the 
manners, habits, laws, and religion of the Indian tribes. 
He also published there 'The Bloody Tenent of Persecution 
for cause of conscience discussed in a Conference between 
Truth and Peace.' (New ed. Providence, 1867.) On the 
occurrence of new difficulties in the colony, he was again 
sent to England, in 1651, and was equally successful. 
While abroad the second time he published * Experiments 
of Spiritual Life and Healthy and their Preservatives,' 
which he says was written ' in the thickest of the native 
Indians of America, in their very wild houses, and by 
their barbarous fires.' ' The Hireling Ministry none of 
Christ's, or a Discourse Touching the Propagating the 
Gospel of Christ Jesus,' and ' The Bloody Tenent yet More 
Bloody, by Mr. Cotton's Endeavor to wash it White in 
the Blood of the Lamb. ' He also engaged in teaching, and 
was intimate with Milton. His employments, as well as 
the scope and character of his learning, are thus indi- 
cated in a letter written to Gov. Winthrop, of Connecti- 
cut, soon after his return : ' It pleased the Lord to call 
me for some time and with some persons to practice the 
Hebrew, the Greek, Latin, French and Dutch. The 
Secretary of the council, (Mr. Milton,) for my Dutch I 
read him, read me many more languages. Grammar 
rules began to be esteemed a tyranny. I taught two 
young gentlemen, a parliament man's sons, as we teach 
our children English, by words, phrases, and constant 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 321 

talk/ etc. He returned to Khode Island in 1654, and in 
September of the same year was elected president of the 
colony, an office which he held for two years and a half. 
He refused to persecute the Quakers, but in 1672 he met 
three of the most eminent preachers of the sect in public 
debate at Newport, and afterwards published a contro- 
versal work entitled ' George Fox digged out of his Bur- 
rows.'" — American Cyclopedia, Vol. xvi., pages 639 and 
640. 

Now, sir, they say that this is positive proof that he 
never espoused the religious tenets of the Quakers, as 
accused by Mr. Benedict and Mr. Cox. And while he 
had conscientious scruples as to the Apostolic succession 
of his baptism, and hence doubted its validity as an 
honest Christian, yet he never departed from the princi- 
ples and faith of the Old Baptists, but from the time of 
his conversion to the doctrines of the primitive Chris- 
tians, he earnestly contended for the faith and practices 
of the ancient Baptists until his death. 

Now, sir, as they seem to be so well fortified in histor- 
ical facts, and have so little trouble in tracing their iden- 
tity back to the apostles, and can prove their principles 
and articles of faith to be identical with the principles 
and articles of faith as held to by the Primitive Chris- 
tians, we much desire your kind admonitions, so that we 
may prevent a public exposition of our principles and 
practice. We further desire that you give us your views 
as to their reasons for discarding one of the most ancient 
and honorable moral institutions of the world from the 



322 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

church. We allude to Free and Accepted Masonry, 
which is surely of divine origin, and was instituted under 
the auspices of God, by Solomon, King of Israel, Hiram, 
King of Tyre, and Hiram Abiff , a widow's son of the 
tribe of Naphtali, representing the Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit. 

Armenian's God. — My much esteemed and ever zeal- 
ous friends, I hope to be able to gratify every desire of 
your honest and devoted hearts. There has been a 
peculiar and ignorant sect of people from the days of 
antiquity to the present that has presumed at all ages of 
the world to gainsay the principles and intelligence of 
me and my ministers ; but many times we have reduced 
them until they were very few in numbers, and to our 
great annoyance they have ever contended that the most 
of the vital principles of the religion of my disciples was 
of the head and not of the heart. And by tradition this 
same element of ignorance has been handed down from 
generation to generation, and are to-day the people that 
these Old Baptists represent, and claim to be so closely 
identified with by religious and spiritual affinity. Thus 
far I have failed to extinguish them, but would warn 
you, together with all intelligent Christians, to evade 
them and shun their society and teachings as you would 
the poisonous asp, lest you and your children become 
poisoned with their heresy and sit complacently upon 
the stool of do-nothing, to be finally swallowed up in 
endless despair. 

I would further advise you that when they expose 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 323 

your errors and evasions of the word of God, to their 
congregations, and prove you to be wrong according to 
the teachings of the Bible, that you pretend to get 
mad, and accuse them of fighting, and denounce what 
they say as a perversion and an insult, and that in con- 
sequence of which you will refuse to attend their meet- 
ings, giving yourselves and children ample reasons for 
staying away, rather than subjecting yourselves to their 
ridicule. You should also refuse to be social with them, 
only by way of ridicule, only at such times as you are 
compelled to recognize them or expose your refinement 
and raising. By thus treating them you will be able to 
force them to compromise what they claim to be truth 
by withdrawing your friendship and society from them. 

And as to Ancient Free and Accepted Masonry, they 
say that in the days of its origin, it was only a represen- 
tation of divine appointment, to represent a grand and 
magnificent antitype, which is the spiritual kingdom of 
the church of Christ, both militant and triumphant. 
And that since the coming of Christ and the setting up 
of his kingdom (the church) Masonry is as dead to the 
church as is the law of circumcision ; and the coming of 
Christ and the setting up of his church was a complete 
fulfillment of all the types, shadows and ceremonies, and 
that by the eternal priesthood of Christ the Levitical 
priesthood of Aaron was abolished, and the temporal 
covenant with the fathers by the eternal covenant of the 
gospel was established. 

"But now hath He obtained a more excellent ministry, 



324 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

by how much also He is the mediator of a better cove- 
nant, which was established upon better promises. For 
if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no 
place have been sought for the second." — Heb. viii. 6, 7. 
"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, 
and not the very image of the things, can never with 
those sacrifices, which they offered year by year contin- 
ually, make the comers thereunto perfect." — Heb. x. 1. 
But that Masonry is one of the noblest institutions that 
was ever instituted by man, and that it belongs to the 
world, and that it is one of the greatest levers to moral- 
ity that is known to the world, outside of the church of 
Jesus Christ, and that the church is the substance of the 
shadow that Masonry typifies ; and that the regenerated 
members of Christ's kingdom, who have been baptized 
into the church of Christ, have been initiated into a 
higher order of Masonry by the attributes and authority 
of the three Grand Officers of that spiritual building, 
that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 
characterized by the name of Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit, which is the antitype to the church of Christ, of 
the founders of Masonry, in the persons of Solomon, 
King of Israel, Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram Abiff, 
a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali. And that hold- 
ing to a shadow when you are in possession of the sub- 
stance, shows a manifest want of faith in the existence 
or availability of the substance. And that they are 
commanded by the authority of high heaven to come 
out from the world and its institutions, and be a separ- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 325 

ate people, for they cannot serve God and mammon 
simultaneously. And that Masonry since the coming of 
Christ, is an institution of the world, and that the 
church must stand unsullied, and must not be corrupted 
by the puny institutions of man. 



Note — Our Masonic Brethren need not be alarmed : we regard our 
obligation as being too sacred to divulge any of the secrets of "An- 
cient Free and Accepted Masonry," unlawfully. We have been a 
Master Mason nearly thirty years, a part of which time we had the 
honor of being Master of the Lodge to which we belonged. The Chap- 
ter Degrees was conferred upon us A. D. 1864, and we were soon elected 
to the position of " Captain of the Host." We now propose to deal with 
the principles, and not the secrets of Masonry. We propose to show 
that Masonry was instituted in the days of Solomon, who was then 
King of Israel, and that the Temple of Solomon was a type of the 
church triumphant, and that the coming of Christ and the setting up of 
his church was a complete fulfillment of the designs of the Temple ; 
and hence modern Masonry is nothing more than a moral institution 
of the world, and a shadow of the church of Christ ; and that the saints 
who have been initiated into the church of Christ have received a 
higher order of Masonry, and hence have no further use for the shadow 
of Christianity, they being in the possession and enjoyment of the 
substance, which is the "covering grip" to all the charities, types and 
shadows as taught in Masonry. We have not visited a Masonic Lodge 
in about eight years, nor do we expect to visit another, without our 
obligation compels us to do so, believing that God for Christ's sake has 
illuminated our spiritual understanding and given us insight to a 
higher order of Masonry, and killed us to the love of types and shadows. 
"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know 
what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his 
inheritance in the saints." — Eph. i. 18. S. M. C. 



326 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Many of these Old Baptists have once belonged to the 
Lodge, and some of them are bright Masons ; and al- 
though they have abandoned the Lodge, and identified 
themselves with these Old Baptists, yet they are Masons 
and we cannot erase the secrets, obligations nor princi- 
ples from their memory ; and, in fact, they are the most 
consistent in their Masonic deportment of any other class 
of members. They seem to be well skilled in the tenets 
and laws of Masonry, and can with apparent ease refer 
to Mackey and other Masonic historians and trace 
Masonry back by Masonic tradition, to the building of 
King Solomon's Temple, and make the traditional 
history of Masonry harmonize beautifully with the 
history of the building of the Temple, as recorded in the 
books of First and Second Chronicles and First and 
Second Kings in the Bible. 

They say that there was not a particle of work done 
by any person or persons, nor a command given by the 
three grand officers, nor a design left upon record, in the 
building of this grand edifice, under the auspices and in 
commemoration of God, that was not a type of some 
grand antitype that pointed to the advent, death, burial 
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, together with the set- 
ting up of his church, the quickening influence of the 
Holy Spirit in the hearts of the saints, their travail from 
nature, to grace, their initiation into the church of Christ 
and their final resting place in the Holy of Holies. 

And that the institution of Masonry, according to 
Masonic tradition, was instituted under the auspices of 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. §27 

God, by Solomon, King of Israel, whose wisdom was a 
type of the wisdom of God in contriving the plan and 
grandeur of the temple ; Hiram, King of Tyre, whose 
wealth was a type of the wealth of the world, in supply- 
ing the means for the building of the grand structure ; 
and Hiram Abiff. a widow's son of the tribe of Xaphtali, 
was the grand architect, whose poverty as .a poor 
widow's son would typify the poverty of Jesus Christ 
while on earth, and his genius in setting up the antitype 
of the temple, his church, and its final consummation at 
the end of time, together with its minuteness and gran- 
deur, when all the saints are brought into the body of 
Christ in the completion of that grand temple of God, 
that temple not made with hands, but eternal in the 
heavens. 

Therefore those three personages, according to Masonic 
tradition, were the founders of Ancient Free and 
Accepted Masonry, who are said in Masonry to be the 
three grand representatives of the Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit. 

They further claim that the natural symbols as taken 
from the quarries and forests of nature, in then rude 
and imperfect state, and then preparation by the 
bearers of burdens and sculptors of art that had been 
furnished for the preparation of these elected stones and 
timbers, who prepared and numbered every piece that 
was to be worked into this moral edifice, precisely after 
the designs of the Grand Architect, so that there would 
be no schisms nor divisions in its erection, but that everv 



328 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

piece should positively fit the precise place for which it 
was intended, without any vacant places, or unnecessary 
protuberances, is a complete figure of the body of Christ, 
when all the elected saints shall be fitly prepared under 
the direction of Jesus Christ, when they have been 
plucked from nature's night and translated into the fight 
and liberty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, having been 
prepared by the Grand Architect of heaven, and squared 
and numbered for that spiritual building, whose maker 
and builder is God ; so that they will fit in the body of 
Christ with that exact nicety that the prepared natural 
stones and timbers did fit in that grand moral edifice as 
built by King Solomon in commemoration of God. 

" And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were 
in the land of Israel, after the numbering wherewith 
David his father had numbered them ; and they were 
found a hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand 
and six hundred. And he set threescore and ten thou- 
sand of them to be bearers of burdens, and fourscore 
thousand to be hewers in the mountains, and three thou- 
sand and six hundred overseers to set the people awork." 
— II Chron. ii. 17, 18. " And Solomon had threescore 
and ten thousand that bare burdens, and fourscore thou- 
sand hewers in the mountains ; besides the chief of 
Solomon's officers which were over the work, three 
thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the 
people that wrought in the work. And the King com- 
manded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, 
and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house. 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 329 

And Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did hew 
them, and the stone-squarers ; so they prepared timber 
and stones to build the house." — I Kings v. 15, 18. 
"Now all the work of Solomon was prepared unto the 
day of the foundation of the house of the Lord, and 
until it was finished. So the house of the Lord was 
perfected." — II Chron. viii. 16. 

"And King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of 
Tyre. He was a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali, 
and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass ; 
and he was filled with wisdom and understanding, and 
cunning to work all works in brass. And he came to 
King Solomon, and wrought all his work." — I Kings vii. 
13, 14. "And Solomon sent to Hiram, the King of 
Tyre, saying, As thou didst deal with David my father, 
and didst send him cedars to build him a house to dwell 
therein, even so deal with me." — II Chron. ii. 3. "So 
Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according 
to all his desire. And Solomon gave Hiram twenty 
thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, 
and twenty measures of pure oil ; thus gave Solomon 
to Hiram year by year. And the Lord gave Solomon 
wisdom as he promised him : and there was peace 
between Hiram and Solomon ; and they two made a 
league together. "—I Kings v. 10, 13. Masonic tradition 
claims that in this league of secret friendship and union 
these grand officers, who were men of God, framed the 
constitution and by-laws that govern Masonry ; together 
with the initiations, obligations and secrets of the order 



330 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

of Ancient Masonry, which were conceived and executed 
by the combined wisdom, wealth and genius of the first 
grand officers. And to prevent impostors, each candi- 
date for membership was closely scrutinized, as to age, 
mental, physical and moral rectitude, and had to work 
in the arts and moral sciences until he proved himself to 
be worthy of the order, before the obligations and 
secrets could possibly be communicated to him. And 
that under no set of circumstances could the degrees be 
conferred upon others until they had thus proven them- 
selves to be worthy, by their assiduity, fidelity and pro- 
ficiency in the arts. Thus typifying the assiduity, 
fidelity and proficiency of the regenerated man of God in 
his travail from nature to grace, and the close scrutiny 
of the Heavenly Master as to his proficiency in humility 
and lowliness, before he was counted worthy to receive 
the grand secret of high heaven in the pardon of his 
sins, and hence his acceptance into the Grand Lodge of 
heaven, from whose bourne no traveler returns. He is 
then inspired from the great love that he has for the 
people of God to communicate this heavenly secret to 
the church of Jesus Christ ; and if the secret harmonize 
with the secret of the saints in their transition from 
nature to grace, he is then received into the fellowship 
of the church, and is then initiated into the church by 
baptism, which is the antitype of the death, burial and 
resurrection of the Grand Master Builder of Solomon's 
temple, which pointed forward as a type of the death, 
burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, of which baptism 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 331 

is the true antitype. Neither can the church nor any 
member thereof under any set of circumstances impart 
this heavenly secret to others ; neither can they know 
the Christian's secret except they pass through the same 
spiritual ordeal, and receive the secret from the same 
Heavenly Master, who presides over the saints in 
heaven, and is the Grand Master Builder of that spiritual 
edifice, that house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens, of which Solomon's temple was a type. 

Each stone that was worked into Solomon's temple, 
and each piece of timber that was used in its construc- 
tion, was elected out of the forests and quarries of nature, 
and was plucked from the forests and quarries without 
their own consent, they having no agency in the matter, 
many more stones and timbers being left than were taken, 
and that, too, without their consent, they alike having 
no agency in the matter. But that the Grand Master 
Builder having the whole plan of the temple in His mind 
before it was built, as much as He did after its comple- 
tion, elected every stone and piece of timber for its con- 
struction, and had them fitly prepared and numbered in 
the forests and quarries where they were felled and raised, 
leaving all their rudeness and imperfections in the forests 
and quarries of nature, while their pure and unadulter- 
ated hearts were fitly prepared, squared and numbered, so 
that there would be no difficulty in every piece fitting 
the place for which it was intended. When thus pre- 
pared, it seems that the material was then carried on 
floats by sea to Japa, and thence by land to Jerusalem ; 



332 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

and that when the temple was being erected there was 
no noise, not even the sound of a tool, but that every 
piece had a place and fit in its place ; and that when the 
temple was complete, and during its preparation, there 
were no other stones nor timbers wooing and beseeching 
the Master Builder to allow them to help Him, and to 
allow them a place in the building ; neither was there 
any rubbish round about its margin, all having been left 
in the forests and quarries. 

And when the temple was complete, and all of its 
parts decorated with fine gold and other precious metals 
by the Master Architect, then the queen of Sheba, to 
gratifiy her curiosity and desires, having heard such 
glowing accounts of the wisdom of Solomon and the 
grandeur of his temple, went to Jerusalem to prove Sol- 
omon with hard questions, and become fully satisfied as 
to the reality of his glory and fame. ' ' And she said to 
the King, It was a true report which I have heard in 
mine own land of thine acts, and of thy wisdom. How- 
beit I believed not their words until I came and mine 
eyes had seen it : and, behold, the one half of the great- 
ness of thy wisdom was not told me : for thou exceedest 
the fame that I heard. Happy are thy men, and happy 
are thy servants, which stand continually before thee 
and hear thy wisdom. " — II Chron. ix. 5, 8. 

These Old Baptists will tell you that the queen of 
Sheba in this instance was a type of the church militant 
of Jesus Christ, and that she represents every saint of 
God, collectively and individually, that ever has been, is 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 333 

now, or that ever will exist to the end of time; and that her 
being told these marvelous stories of the fame of Solo- 
mon and the grandeur of his temple, in her own land, 
and her rejection of it as fiction, is a complete type of 
every child of God while in his sins ; and her being in 
her own land is a type of the child of God being in his 
own nature, and trying to prove the wisdom and gran- 
deur of the church of Christ by hard questions, as the 
queen of Sheba was trying to prove Solomon, until they 
are led by the Spirit of God, as she was, to see the wis- 
dom, beauty and grandeur of the church of Jesus Christ, 
in the pardon of their sins ; then they are ready, as did 
the queen, to exclaim in perfect amazement and know- 
ledge, that the half has not been told, and that they are 
then made to be as happy as the men and servants of 
the King were when they stood continually before him 
and heard Ins wisdom. 

These elected stones and timbers that were elected by 
the wisdom of Solomon for the building of his temple, 
were prepared by the genius of the Grand Architect, 
without any agency on the part of the stones and 
timbers, and were felled in the forest of Lebanon and 
raised from the quarries by the ten thousand that were 
elected as bearers of burdens, and were prepared by the 
fourscore thousand that were chosen by the Grand Archi- 
tect to be hewers in the mountains. And that three 
thousand overseers who were gifted with more genius 
were carrying out the designs of the Grand Architect in 



334 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

having the stones and timbers prepared, squared and 
numbered to order. 

These elected stones and timbers are said in Masonic 
tradition to be a type of the elected " profane " who have 
been elected by the members of a Masonic Lodge for 
membership ; but should one member of the Lodge, 
whose duty it is to guard the ballot box, find an imper- 
fection of any magnitude in the "profane" he will be 
rejected as unfit material to be worked into their 
Masonic edifice ; but should he be a perfect man physi- 
cally and morally, without any serious defects, they then 
accept him, and carry him through an ordeal of initia- 
tion which is reckoned as simulating the preparations of 
the stones and timbers of Solomon's Temple, which 
ordeal simulates in a literal sense the ordeal through 
which the saints travail in their conflict from nature to 
grace, in a spiritual sense ; and their progress in the 
literature and arts of Masonry is reckoned as the Chris- 
tian's growth in grace and knowledge of the perfections 
of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the final adjust- 
ment of the everlasting capstone that the builders of the 
literal temple rejected. 

Those literal stones and timbers that were elected from 
the quarries and forests of nature were not free moral 
agents, neither did they have anything to do with their 
own election or literal preparation for the building of 
the temple ; but they were quickened or plucked from 
nature's hidden resources, through the mighty influence 
and wisdom of the master builders, and were prepared, 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 335 

squared and numbered by the gift and genius of those 
who were appointed and authorized to be hewers in the 
mountains, who executed the designs of the master 
workman, whose instructions were to use no material 
in the building except such as gave satisfactory evidences 
of having a pure heart, and that all others must be re- 
jected. Hence the imperfections that were incident to 
the elected stones and timbers in their rude and imper- 
fect state by nature were all erased by the sculptors of 
art, and were left in the forests and quarries, and were 
not brought up to the temple as a hindrance to its 
erection, nor as a mass of debris to detract from its 
beauty and grandeur ; hence the temple was a perfect 
building without a spot or blemish of imperfection. 

Thus it is that the saints who are to compose and 
make up the body of Christ, or that spiritual building, 
were chosen in Christ before the world began, through 
the wisdon and genius of the Father and the Son, of 
whom the master builders of Solomon's Temple were a 
type. And Jesus Christ is manifesting himself to them 
through the medium of his Holy Spirit, at the appointed 
time of the Father, all along through time. And every 
one of God's chosen spiritual stones shall be quickened 
into spiritual life, or plucked, as it were, from the hid- 
den treasures of God's amazing mercy and grace, and 
from among the mixed multitude of others, who in the 
eternal mind of God were not suitable material to be 
worked into that spiritual building whose maker and 
builder is God. And these eternal chosen ones shall all 



336 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

be quickened and brought from nature's night into the 
marvelous light and liberty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
and in their travail from nature to grace, and in their 
humiliations and disappointments in having to give up 
all for Christ's sake, having to forsake all self -righteous- 
ness and self-aggrandizement, and fall at the feet of 
Jesus, taking him for surety in all things pertaining to 
eternal life, leaving all the institutions and doctrines of 
man in the forest of Lebanon ; thus leaving all their 
sins and imperfections in the forests and quarries of 
Babylon, having been hewn, squared and numbered for 
a precise place in the church of Jesus Christ, by the 
designs of the Master Spiritual Builder, having been 
engraved in their hearts, through the medium of the 
teachings of God's overseers, or ministers, together with 
the help of His hewers in the mountains and bearers of 
burdens, as exemplified in the building of the literal 
temple, which is a complete type of the gifts of the 
church of Jesus Christ, simulating the ministers, officers 
and laity of the church, and pointing directly to their 
various duties and gifts in building up and sustaining 
the church and servants of Jesus Christ's gospel. And 
that when all the elect of God have been triumphantly 
brought into this spiritual building, time will be no 
more, and the effulgent splendor and glory of this spirit- 
ual temple will be equal in spiritual grandeur to the 
literal grandeur of Solomon's Temple. And that after 
God has thus prepared them for this grand spiritual 
temple, they are then fit subjects to be carried on floats 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 337 

by sea to Japa, and thence by land to Jerusalem, which 
is a type of their being carried through the water in 
baptism, and thence by land to the church militant and 
triumphant, or that holy city of which Jerusalem is a 
type, and where they will fit in the body or temple of 
Christ with that exact nicety that surpasses all human 
ingenuity. And that the wealth of Hiram, King of 
Pyre, that was used in decorating the literal temple of 
the Lord that was built by Solomon in commemoration 
of God, and the sixscore talents of gold, and the gold 
from Ophir, and the different timbers and precious stones 
that were furnished by ffiram in the building of this 
grand type of the final ingathering of the body of Christ 
into that Temple of temples that is eternal in the 
heavens, is a complete figure of the abounding wealth 
and grandeur of the Holy Spirit when applied to the 
saints of God in their conversion, regeneration and final 
decoration, when brought into that holy city, every one 
fitting in the precise place for which he was intended 
by the Grand Master of heaven's spiritual temple, 
whose genius in decorating this heavenly building far 
surpasses all the arts of man ; and that the genius of all 
the linguists of earth will never attain to a description 
of its glory and grandeur when adorned by the spiritual 
handiwork of the Supreme Architect of the universe. 
And that these spiritual stones and timbers, if the 
allegory is a good one, had about as much to do in their 
election and preparation for this spiritual building, as 
free agents, as did the literal stones and timbers of the 



338 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

literal temple. All Masons know that they had nothing 
to do with their election nor initiation into the order, 
only as they were acted upon, except in the midst of 
their conflict in passing the ordeal required in conferring 
the degrees, they are suffered to pray for themselves ; 
which is a perfect figure of the conflict of all God's 
elected ones, while they are acted upon by the Holy 
Spirit, and manipulated upon by the members of the 
church, and indoctrinated by the preaching of the gospel 
by God's ministers. They are suffered to pray for them- 
selves ; yea, compelled by the propelling power of the 
mighty influence of the Holy Spirit to ask God to have 
mercy upon them, as their conviction for sin and the 
ordeal of preparation for that spiritual building is acting 
upon them so powerfully that they feel themselves justly 
sinking into endless despair, without the all-sustaining 
grace or favor of a merciful God. But after they have 
passed the ordeal, and have experienced a pardon of 
their sins, by being hewn, squared and numbered by 
the Holy Spirit, and instructed by the members of 
Christ's church, or kingdom, they are then ready for 
baptism, or initiation into the church of Jesus Christ ; 
after which they are accepted as workmen in the vine- 
yard of the Lord, according to their several gifts, and 
are then able to admonish and assist others, in kind and 
sympathetic admonitions, while passing through the 
same trials from nature to grace. "And I will bring 
the blind by a way that they knew not ; I will lead them 
in paths that they have not known : I will make dark- 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 339 

ness light before them, and crooked things straight. 
These things will I do unto them, and not forsake 
them."— Is. xlii. 16. 

All Masons who have passed the ordeal of initia- 
tion, and have been judged as being worthy to receive 
the grand secrets of the order whereby one brother may 
know another in the dark as well as in the light, know 
that it is a positive violation of the laws and regulations 
of Masonry for them to beg or persuade any person to 
become a Mason : but the person must become willing 
of his own free will and accord, from a favorable opin- 
ion of the ancient order, or he cannot be made a Mason. 
This being the case, the aspirant makes known his de- 
sires to some friend who is a member, who reports his 
wishes to the Lodge, and the master of the Lodge ap- 
points a committee to investigate his moral character, 
and see if he is fit material to be worked into their 
Masonic edifice, etc. This is a precise pattern of the 
church of Jesus Christ. And there is not another de- 
nomination of Christians under the canopy of heaven 
who practice the ancient tenets of Masonry, except the 
Old Baptists. Who has ever heard of the Old Baptists 
canvassing land and sea to increase their numbers ? 
" Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte ; and 
when he is made ye make him two-fold more the child 
of hell than yourselves." — Matt, xxiii. 15. 

But the candidate for membership in the Old Baptist 
church, or church of Christ, must come of his own free 



34:0 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

will and accord, having been made willing by the opera- 
tion of the Holy Spirit npon his heart, to forsake all else 
for the sake of Jesus Christ and his church. He then 
makes known to the church in conference (which is a 
figure of the ancient Lodges in regular session,) his de- 
sire to become a member and live after the pattern of 
Jesus Christ. He makes this application in person, or 
through some member he communicates his wish to be- 
come a member, and expresses a willingness to forsake 
all the types and shadows of Masonry and the old laws 
of the Levitical priesthood, that pointed to the coming 
of Christ and the setting up of his church ; thus abolish- 
ing ancient Masonry and instituting the church of 
Christ instead. If the candidate is then able in confer- 
ence to give a satisfactory reason of his hope in Jesus 
Christ, and is judged by the church as being fit material 
to be worked into their spiritual edifice, judging the in- 
ternal and not the external qualifications, he is received 
as a suitable candidate for baptism, or initiation into the 
church of Christ, without any bulldozing or logrolling 
them into the church, making proselytes by sea and 
land. 

They further teach that the untimely death of the 
grand master builder of the literal temple and his resur- 
rection and transportation to the literal temple of God, 
for a more decent burial, as compiled by Masonic tradi- 
tions, is a type of the untimely destruction of the temple, 
and its resurrection or rebuilding, and that both in- 
stances point to the seeming untimely death, burial and 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 341 

resurrection of Jesus Christ as the grand antitype. And 
that the carrying of the grand master builder to the city 
of Jerusalem, which is a type of heaven, and depositing his 
remains in the literal temple of the Lord, which is a type 
of the body of Jesus Christ, is a complete figure of the 
resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ into the 
heaven of heavens, after his literal temple had been de- 
stroyed by his enemies, and resurrected or rebuilt and 
formed into a spiritual temple at the right hand of God, 
in the everlasting holy city of the Lord ; and that the 
gradual merging of the saints into glory, or into the 
body of Christ, all along through time, in rebuilding that 
spiritual temple to its final completion at the final con- 
summation of all things, is the grand antitype of the re- 
building of the literal temple, eighteen years before the 
coming of Christ. " Herod this year begins to enlarge, 
or rather to rebuild, the temple at Jerusalem, forty-six 
years before the first passover of the ministry of Christ, 
and in nine years and a half finished the magnificent 
structure." — Index to Holy Bible. " Jesus answered 
and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three 
days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and 
six years was this temple in building ; and wilt thou 
rear it up in three days ? But he spake of the temple of 
his body."— John ii. 19, 21. 

These Old Baptists seem to have but little trouble in 
proving that ancient Masonry was a complete type of 
Jesus Christ and the setting up of his kingdom, and hence 
the destruction of the shadow of principles in the com- 



342 SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

ing of Christ, and the establishment of his church ; and 
that modern Masonry is nothing more than a Jewish 
farce, as compared with ancient Masonry, and is virtual- 
ly a denial of the coining of Christ and the establish- 
ment of his church, and is equally as inconsistent, in 
church members, as is the practice of circumcision among 
the Jews ; and that church members who visit and tol- 
erate modern Masonic Lodges could with equal propriety 
have their sons circumcised at eight days old. 

But that modern Masonry is highly commendable 
outside of the church, and is regarded by intelligent 
and literary Old Baptists as being one of the noblest 
moral and charitable institutions that was ever insti- 
tuted by man, if the principles were adhered to ; 
but that the principles as practised by modern Masonry 
are foreign to the designs of ancient Masonry. For it is 
well known to all who have the gift of discrimination 
that the devices and pollutions of men and devils are 
cloaked under the great cloak of charity in modern 
Masonry, and the evil doers retained in the order as 
acceptable members, while m ancient Masonry they 
were thrust out of the temple for their deeds of daring. 

It is further claimed that ancient Masonry does not 
teach anything, from the commencement to the com- 
pletion of the temple, but election, foreknowledge, pre- 
destination and final perseverance ; pointing to the 
absolute predestination of all things in the eternal mind 
of Jehovah before the world began. And that if modern 
Masonry was in precept and example what ancient 



SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 343 

Masonry was, it would be wholly inconsistent for an 
Arminian ever to be made a Mason, as ancient Masonry 
is diametrically in opppsition to the popular theory of 
salvation by means and instrumentalities, but was 
originally based upon the principles of eternal and par- 
ticular election. 

And now, O Lord, the work is done, 

And ready to depart ; 
O let thy Spirit bear it home 

With power to every heart. 

May it, like Eleazar, go, 

And guided by thy power, 
Cause humble saints thy will to know, 

In this thy favored hour. 

May false professors by it see 

Their guilty, awful stand, 
And to the blessed Savior flee, 

Thus humbled by his hand. 

By it may all the hireling crew 

That run, but are not sent, 
Their awful stand be brought to view, 

And cause them to repent. 

By it may all that persecute 

The people of the Lord, 
See that of strength they're destitute 

To fight against his word. 

May all thy precious saints who know 

That they are born to die, 
Set their own house in order, too, 

Before they're called on high. 



S4A SUPPOSED INTERVIEW. 

Note — Our subject being inexhaustible, we are compelled to desist, 
or make our work more voluminous than would be convenient in the 
common courtesies and ethics of neighbors in borrowing and loaning 
for the mutual benefit of all. We had intended making a spiritual 
application of the building of the tower of Babel, where God con- 
founded the languages of those who were engaged in the building, and 
set at naught the effort system of getting to heaven upon the means 
and instrumentality plan (Gen. xi.), and compare it with Catholicism, 
and show that over six hundred different spiritual tongues or lan- 
guages, all calling themselves the church of Christ, all of which have 
had their languages confounded, and do not understand their spiritual 
mother tongue, who by spiritual consanguinity can be traced back to 
Catholicism, which is a complete figure of the building and suspension 
of the tower of Babel, which typifies the confounding of the doctrines 
of the churches of Antichrist, so that they do not understand the lan- 
guage of their mother tongue (Catholicism) nor each other's spiritual 
language ; yet they affiliate and negotiate together, and seem to have 
fellowship for each other's spiritual dead languages, and bid each other 
God speed, by partaking of each other's evil deeds ; while the Old 
Baptists stand unsullied upon the faith and doctrines of Jesus Christ 
and the Apostles, as once delivered to the saints, and can trace them- 
selves back by spiritual affinity and consanguinity in regular succession 
to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. But we presume that we have said 
enough for those who have any spiritual discernment to see the lines 
of demarcation between the church of Christ and the churches of 
Antichrist, as taught in the Scriptures of divine truth. Praying the 
God of heaven, if in accordance with His will, to give all the redeemed 
or elect of God, who have been caught in the nets of Babylon, eyes to 
see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand. " For God, who com- 
manded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, 
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ."— II Cor. iv. G. S. M. C. 



PART III. 



APPENDIX. 

A Condensed Biography and Experience of the 

Author. 

By way of appendix, it has been insisted upon by our 
friends and brethren, that we give a condensed com- 
pendium of our ancestry, life and experience, or travail 
from nature's night to the marvelous light of the gospel 
of Jesus Christ in the pardon of our sins. We have 
consented to comply with their wishes, peradventure we 
have a Christian experience and are not deceived. We 
believe this to be an imperative duty that we owe to our 
brethren and friends, as well as to gratify our own 
desires, in communicating the authorship to our kindred 
in the flesh, schoolmates and friends throughout the 
States. Not that we are egotistic or vain over our suc- 
cess, nor that we would vaunt over our merits, for we 
know that our work is imperfect, and that of ourselves 
we can do nothing. "I can of mine own self do noth- 
ing." — John v. 30. And if Jesus could do nothing inde- 
pendent of the Father, we could not be presumptuous 
enough to undertake to edify and comfort the saints 
without the comforting influence of the Spirit of God to 



31:6 APPENDIX. 

aid and direct us. But to a heavenly Benefactor we bow 
in humble submission, humility and thanksgiving, per- 
adventure He has impressed us to compile a work that 
will do honor to His holy name and edify and comfort 
the afflicted and chosen people of the true and living 
God. 

We were born of humble, but honest parents, October 
the 1st, A. D. 1830, in the County of Thomas, and State 
of Georgia. 

In the winter of 1837 and 1838, father moved into 
Lowdnes County, a distance of about six or seven miles, 
at which home he became surety for others, and had a 
protracted litigated law suit for a large herd of cattle, 
and lost all his substance, and the family was reduced 
from partial affluence to extreme poverty. After which 
our father was at times infatuated with madness : he 
lost all of his energies, and many times his madness 
terminated in partial insanity. He therefore became a 
hindrance to the support and education of his children ; 
but our dear old mother surmounted all of these troubles 
with much Christian fortitude, and raised her children 
in credit and respectability, but without much literary 
attainments. 

Our father and mother were reared and married in 
Duplin County, North Carolina, and emigrated from 
thence to Thomas County, Georgia, between the years 
1818 and 1823. Our father's name was Shadrick Carlton 
and our mother's maiden name was Catharine Sloan. 
Our grandfather Carlton's name was David, and our 



APPENDIX. 347 

grandfather Sloan's name was John. Our father had 
one brother, whose name was Henry, and three sisters, 
whose names we do not remember. Our mother had 
one brother and one sister, whose names were John and 
Elizabeth, who emigrated to Georgia with our parents, 
both of whom raised large families. Mother's sister 
marrying our great uncle, Hardy Carlton ; mother being 
the youngest of the three ; she married my father 
several years after the marriage of her sister. 

Our parents raised eight children, viz : Harmon, Mar- 
garet, Susan, Elvie, John Sloan, Blake, Snider Miles, 
(who is the author of this manual) and Catharine. 

In January, 1845, our mother moved from Georgia to 
Alabama, and settled in Coffee County, and father re- 
turned to North Carolina to look after his interest in his 
father's estate, whose property was worth several 
thousand dollars at his death ; but those who were alike 
interested in the estate took advantage of our father's 
infatuated madness, or partial insanity, and defrauded 
him out of his inheritance. He remained away from 
his family three years, and returned to them more in- 
furiated than ever, and made many efforts to assume 
control and squander our earnings. The four older 
children being married, and having homes of their own, 
leaving mother with the four younger, who were rapidly 
merging into manhood and womanhood, who with their 
stern resistance to his infuriated despotism and want to 
squander and make waste, aided by the giant intellect 
and Christian fortitude of a sainted mother, we over- 



348 APPENDIX. 

came his freaks of madness and surmounted our extreme 
poverty ; after which we gradually merged into respec- 
tability and honor among our neighbors and associates 
who lived adjacent to our new home. 

When the humble writer was about eighteen years 
old it was agreed upon by our mother and brothers that 
we be allowed the privilege of going to school, long 
enough at least to acquire an ordinary English educa- 
tion. This covenant was entered into through sympathy 
for the poor, unworthy, yet grateful writer, who was 
afflicted with "Congenital oblique inguinal scrotal her- 
nia" which disease marred his prospects in making a 
living by manual labor, and at that time bid fair to sup 
the foundation of his physical organism, which disease 
we have since cured by the use of a truss of our own 
invention. 

We went to school two fall sessions, laboring hard 
with our brothers each spring to make a crop before we 
could be spared out of the farm, during which time we 
made rapid progress in English literature. 

In the early part of the year 1851 our neighbors in- 
sisted upon our taking charge of a settlement school, 
and instructing their children in the primary branches 
of English education. We accepted their kind proposi- 
tion, but with many conscientious scruples as to our 
ability in government and discipline. We felt our boy- 
hood and nothingness, and were not well grown, being 
only twenty years of age. This was a trial session, in 



APPENDIX. 349 

which we gave satisfaction, after which we attended 
a high school during its fall session. 

In the year 1852 our neighbors gave us the school 
again, which we taught with entire satisfaction until 
some time in June, when we were seized in the school- 
room with powerful nervous paroxysms, convulsing our 
whole frame with spasmodic contractions of apparently 
every muscle of our organism, on account of the enor- 
mity of our sins ; but we were then ignorant of the 
cause of our organic troubles, and supposed that we 
were soon going to die. 

Outside of our original sin, "Behold, I was shapen in 
iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." We 
had become a great sinner by actual commission, the 
great evil of which we had never before been made to 
realize. We had learned to love the revelings of young 
and wicked associates, and from the position that we 
had gained in society we had learned with cunningly 
devised stratagem to disguise our diabolical deeds of 
wickedness, and appear in society as a chaste and refined 
gentleman. Our chief delight was the ballroom, and 
the seduction of young boys and girls who were our 
associates, decoying them from the paths of rectitude 
and morals, to that of secret revelry and ruin. But 
thanks be to our God, we were overtaken by that Spirit 
that does all things well. "In whom also we have ob- 
tained an inheritance, being predestinated according to 
the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the 
counsel of His own will." — Eph. i. 11. 



350 APPENDIX. 

It had been our custom in the school room to lecture 
our pupils occasionally upon the importance of the duties 
that they owed to their parents, teachers, society, and to 
their God. While admonishing them on this occasion 
we were stricken with horror, begotten convictions of 
hypocrisy, and made to feel that we were counterfeiting 
and mocking the religion of Jesus Christ. We at once 
dismissed our school for recess, when immediately fol- 
lowed a severe paroxysm of languor, melancholy and 
depression of spirits, terminating in rapid succession in 
convulsions of the muscles of the whole human organ- 
ism. Our tongue was convulsed, and we could not speak 
for several minutes ; but we retained our mind, and 
couched upon the benches, with some books under our 
head. When we were able to speak, we were so sure we 
were going to die that we ordered our two little nephews 
to go for their father, who was our oldest brother, 
(Harmon,) with whom we boarded. When our brother 
arrived, the paroxysm had partially subsided. Some 
stimulants were administered, and we were carried to 
his house for protection. Our mother was sent for, who 
cared for us for a few days, and we again resumed our 
duties in the school room, only to be disturbed again by 
the same character of paroxysms, when that great flood 
of sin and condemnation was again presented to our 
mental vision. We made several abortive efforts to con- 
tinue our school, but all our efforts were futile. 

We went to our mother's home for protection and for 
death, perad venture medical aid would not restore us ; 



APPENDIX. 351 

for we verily believed that we were going to die. Our 
family physician was summoned. His diagnosis was 
difficult, and his prognosis was uncertain ; he was not 
able to detect any certain form of disease, and therefore 
tantalized us with the idea of ' ( Hypochondriacism. " He 
administered to us powerful antispasmodics, alternating 
with the various preparations of opium ; but all were 
futile, and when the effects were gone and the awful 
forebodings of death and endless despair were again pre- 
sented to us, and the justice of our condemnation riveted 
upon our mental vision, we were again and again thrown 
into those nervous paroxysms, followed by the prayers 
and supplications of a sympathizing Christian mother. 

It would be wholly unnecessary for us to say to the 
Christian reader that our continued prayer to God was 
for mercy instead of justice. Meanwhile there seemed 
to be a secret monitor within us, repeating the familiar 
old verse, 

"Afflictions, though they seem severe, 

In mercy oft are sent ; 
They stopped the prodigal's career, 

And caused him to repent." 

Many were the times that this familiar old verse of 
poetry revolved through our anxious mind, giving us 
indescribable comfort. 

We became emaciated and haggard. Our leanness 
amounted to inactivity and weakness, both physically 
and mentally. Eepeated opiates had established con- 



352 APPENDIX. 

stipation and dyspepsia, or indigestion, and we. had given 
up all hopes of recovery. With all of these forebodings 
of approaching dissolution, we were seized with the 
most severe and protracted nervous spasm that had ever 
visited our couch. The physician was summoned, and 
after repeated efforts he pronounced the fatal sentence, 
and gave us a heavy opiate which lulled us off to sleep 
amid the cries and lamentations of associates, brothers, 
sisters, and a dear old sainted mother, who had for weeks 
and months suspected our trouble and had inquired after 
the causes very cautiously. She believed that we were 
laboring under a deep conviction of sin and condemna- 
tion in the sight of God. This was about the 10th of 
January, A. D. 1853, and was in the early part of the 
night ; and that night to us was shrouded in dark fore- 
bodings of endless despair ; gloom was depicted upon 
every object that met our vision, and justice demanded 
that we soon be launched into eternity, where we would 
forever be banished from the peaceful presence of God. 
Amid the burning candles and mourning friends that 
surrounded our couch, we dropped into a tranquil sleep ; 
and ere the day had dawned we feel that the God of 
heaven presented us with a vision that will never be 
erased from our memory until reason is dethroned. 
There seemed to be a great aperture in the roof of the 
house, immediately over our couch, and the day seemed 
to be of crystal brightness, and in the aperture appeared 
a great white sheet, or litter, which gradually descended 
upon our couch, and lay by our side, upon which sheet 



APPENDIX. 353 

or litter lay three beautiful infant babes, all dressed in 
spotless white, and were all perfect fac-similes of each 
other. Their tinted cheeks, ruby lips and bright eyes 
were the image of perfection, their rippling feet and clasp- 
ing hands seemed to be dancing in the air with joy, and 
their smiles were radiant with beaming brightness. But 
these heavenly ejaculations soon passed away. The an- 
gelic forms of these infant babes were soon shrouded in 
the habiliments of death, and they lay lifeless upon the 
litter or sheet. That luster and tint that adorned their 
heavenlike features had all passed away, and they ap- 
peared ghastly and cadaverous. In this condition they 
gradually ascended upon the litter or sheet through the 
aperture in the housetop, and were soon out of our sight. 
When we awoke in the early morning, to realize that 
our vision was only a dream, and was possibly a freak 
of hallucination, caused from the effects of opium, or a 
disordered condition of the mind caused from our fore- 
bodings of approaching dissolution, we were again per- 
plexed for want of a proper solution of its interpretation; 
for we verily believed that it was a heavenly vision, and 
that our God had sent those three little innocent messen- 
gers to give us warning of our approaching demise, and 
that their sudden death and ascension through the aper- 
ture in the housetop was a warning to us of our early de- 
parture or transition from this terrestrial or mundane 
sphere, to that celestial habitation that is only occupied 
by the saints or chosen people of God. The terror of 
death and everlasting banishment from the peaceful 



354 APPENDIX. 

presence of God was to some extent stayed, and there 
was a serenity and calmness of mind that followed ; but 
not with that gush of ecstatic joy and delightful en- 
thusiasm that attends the peaceful deliverance of many 
heaven-born souls ; for the horrors and pangs of death 
were still hovering around us. 

While we felt that we had some of the evidences of our 
deliverance from the debt of sin and condemnation, 
through the efficacy of the blood of Christ, and that our 
spirit would soon follow the innocent babes through the 
yielding ether to the untold glories of distant climes, yet 
to be the possessor of this everlasting profusion of glory 
we must die, and leave friends, associates, kindred, and 
especially that sainted old Christian mother, who was 
dearer to us than all earthly ties. Our mind was vividly 
carried back to our childhood, and her gentle cares and 
Christian precepts occupied a place in our memory that 
controlled the very emotions of our soul, and we could 
not get our consent to die and leave her. 

But thanks be to our God we lost sight of eternal 
punishment after death, and have not had another one 
of those horror-begotten nervous spasms in over thirty 
years. the joys and consolations that are afforded the 
poor sin-sick and contrite soul, by the soothing words 
and gentle admonitions of a devoted Christian mother ! 
In our earliest recollections we well remember that our 
dear old mother would assemble her children around her 
knees in the family room and read chapter after chapter 
in the old family Bible, and with her giant mind, and 



APPENDIX. 355 

love of Bible and spiritual learning, she would expound 
to us the unsearchable riches of Christ, and his eternal 
purpose in the salvation of his chosen people. She was 
a Primitive Baptist since our earliest recollection, and 
had a wonderful gift in expounding the great and mar- 
velous works of God in the plan of salvation, and was 
much revered by all who knew her. 

We gradually recovered from our suspected fatal sick- 
ness ; and as our strength and muscles developed into 
reinstated manhood and vigor, we became more and 
more convinced that our vision was mental delusion. 
We gradually merged into many of our former habits, 
and manifested a disposition to disregard the warnings 
of our God, and actually perjured ourself by failing to 
comply with the vows we had made to our God to serve 
and obey Him, peradventure He would only restore us 
to our wonted health. But the remorse of conscience 
that followed our disobedience is indescribable. 

We were conscious of the fact that our young asso- 
ciates would mock us should we presume to execute the 
vows that we had made to our God, and our former con- 
duct forbade that we should be presumptuous enough to 
claim the society of the people of God, without execut- 
ing these vows, and that our presumption would be 
mockery in the sight of God ; hence we felt to be alone 
and miserable, but would occasionally resort to our 
former associations to disguise the great secret that was 
between us and our God. 

In the midst of these conflicts we were offered a situa- 



356 APPENDIX. 

tion in a dry goods store in the town of Daleville, Ala- 
bama, by our much esteemed friend, Dr. E. J. Hays, 
now of Panola county, Texas, which situation we ac- 
cepted in the spring of 1853. In the year 1854 we sold 
goods for Messrs. H. W. B. Price & Bro., of the same 
town, who proved themselves to be faithful and true 
friends. Having been thrown into business contact 
with the masses for two years, our mind was much 
diverted from our former troubles. In the meantime 
our dear old mother, together with brothers and sisters, 
(except sister Susan, who remained in Thomas county, 
Georgia,) emigrated to Texas and Mississippi, leaving us 
alone in the hands of our God, to partake of the hospi- 
talities of kind friends, but never again to realize the 
consolations and sweet communion of a dear Christian 
mother ; for she died in Houston county, Texas, in the 
fall of 1858, and our unfortunate father followed her in 
death in the spring of 1859. They now sleep by each 
other in old Randolph Cemetery. 

In the spring of 1853 we formed the happy acquain- 
tance of our dear wife, and married her on the 12th of 
December, A. D. 1854. She has shared with us many 
hardships and trials. We have had conflicts and ad- 
versities, and many times we have had flattering evi- 
dences of prosperity. She has ever been ready to share 
our joys and sorrows, and in adversities she has ever 
been zealous and untiring, in her energies and economy, 
to make good our losses. She has borne for us six chil- 
dern, our first two died in infancy. To the four living 



APPENDIX. 357 

children and the Primitive Baptists we desire to dedicate 
this Book : to-wit, Lobel Alva, Mary Ellena, Sallie Ada, 
and Oswald Snider. 

Our wife's maiden name was Nancy Clark Satter- 
white. She was the daughter of Stephen and Eebecca 
Satterwhite. Her father was a living monument of 
honor and Christianity. He was a deacon of the Primi- 
tive Baptist church since our earliest acquaintance with 
"him, and was universally revered by all who knew him. 
He and his wife died during the Confederate war, and 
were interred in Daleville Cemetery, Dale county, Ala- 
bama. 

In the year 1855 we taught the village school of Haw 
Eidge, Alabama, and with our earnings during the win- 
ter of 1855 and 1856 we attended our first course of lec- 
tures in the Reformed Medical College, of Macon, Georgia. 
We practiced medicine in the counties of Barbour and 
Dale, Alabama, nearly three years, and then graduated 
in the same college, in the winter of 1858 and 1859. 

In January, 1862, we moved to the town of Brundidge, 
Pike county, Alabama ; and in January, 1872, we emi- 
grated to Panola county, Texas, and from thence to 
Henderson, Eusk county, Texas, in February, 1879, 
where we now reside. 

From the time of our marriage we found comforts and 
consolations in our dear wife and her kind parents that 
partially supplied the place of our dear mother, until the 
death of her parents, when we found ourselves over- 
whelmed with the joys and consolations of interesting 



358 APPENDIX. 

little children, coupled with the tender cares of a devoted 
wife, which ravished our soul with gratitude to God for 
His loving-kindness. 

From the time of our vision to the death of Mr. and 
Mrs. Satterwhite we made many vows to our God, but 
only to be broken, and we humiliated by contrition of 
soul. Our proud and romantic heart revolted at our 
better desires, and reveled in romance for temporary 
joys ; while the inner man, when solitary and alone, was 
yearning after the Spirit of Christ. But the great secret 
that was between us and our God had not yet been re- 
vealed, and must be concealed, or we be subjected to the 
scoffs of the jovial populace, and our professional lustre 
impeded with the pretence of Christianity ; hence we 
were often found at the ball-room, and other places of 
hilarity, seeking renown among the gay and fashionable 
circles, to add lustre to our calling and names to our pat- 
ronage. "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, 
and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." — Heb. 
xii. 6. Thanks be to our God, this Scripture has given 
much comfort to our poor, afflicted soul ; for we have 
been deservedly beaten with many stripes of chastise- 
ment from our God, and can now rejoice at the dealings 
of our God to usward, feeling that our stubborn heart 
has at last been subdued. At the commencement of the 
Confederate war we were powerfully infatuated with 
Southern patriotism. Our Southern politicians and 
patriots were proclaiming it from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific oceans, and from the Gulf of Mexico to Mason 



APPENDIX. 359 

and Dixon's line, for the Congress of the United States 
to give them equal rights in the Union, or they would 
have independence out of the Union. We became reck- 
lessly infuriated at the cunning craftiness of our 
Northern contemporaries in their effort to free Southern 
slaves, and thereby wrench from their Southern neigh- 
bors any part of the political control of the Government. 
We enlisted in the Southern army, and to banish from 
our mind the love and tender sympathy that we had for 
our dear wife and children we had left behind upon 
meager rations, we resorted to reckless romance and 
amusing anecdotes, and soon won the admiration of all 
our comrades. But at our solitary moments and at the 
dead hours of night our eyes were often bathed in tears 
while asking the God of heaven to have mercy upon us, 
and to protect our wife and dear children from all harm, 
and to return us to them in peace at His own appointed 
time, if in accordance with His will. 

In the hot days of June, 1863, our regiment was 
ordered to make a quick march from the valley to near 
the summit of Lookout mountain, near Chattanooga, 
Tenn. Before reaching our destination our bowels 
gushed through the inguinal ring, in spite of our truss, 
and we were prostrated by the wayside with our old 
Congenital Hernia, and upon examination the army 
surgeon found that it was strangulated, which gave us 
much pain, and him much trouble to reduce ; after 
which our company and many others petitioned our dis- 
charge, with the allegations of physical disability, and 



360 APPENDIX. 

we returned home to our wife and dear little children. 
Near the close of the war, when all of our hopes of vic- 
tory were blasted, and our Southern institutions were com- 
pelled to succumb to superior force, our waste places and 
swamps were dotted with camps of profligates and deserters 
from the contending armies, and raiding companies were 
being formed by them, with wicked leaders, who piloted 
them through the country for part of the spoils ; at late 
hours of the night they would rifle the houses of old 
men, and torture them by hanging them by the thumbs, 
and many times by the neck, until they would give up 
all their valuables, rather than die, many of whom never 
recovered. They would then insult their wives and 
daughters by committing diabolical deeds of shame, and 
then return to their camps with impunity. Under these 
circumstances we became reckless and demoralized, and 
lost sight of the justice and goodness of God ; and we 
often declared our infidelity, and cursed bitter oaths 
from the effects of our madness ; but, like Peter of old, 
who denied his Lord, we often went out and wept 
bitterly. These raiding companies continued to commit 
high crimes for months, until forbearance ceased to be a 
virtue ; when we, together with about twenty others, 
formed ourselves into a secret league, and took a solemn 
oath to take the life of every robber that we could appre- 
hend and make the proof, regardless of law or con- 
science. But our God arrested our schemes by sending 
a company of armed soldiers to protect our old men, 



APPENDIX. 361 

women and children, and relieved us of committing 
crime. 

We continued in this state of mental religious mania 
for three or four years, during which time we committed 
many depredations, resulting in our shame and humilia- 
tion. But, God be praised, He always made a way for 
escape, and saved us from disgrace and ruin ; for when 
our diabolical plans were about to be consummated, He 
always intervened and saved us from shame and ruin. 
In our madness we remember to have concocted a plan 
to swindle the Federal Government and make good our 
losses that had been unjustly brought upon us by the 
authorities that had overcome our armies. Had we 
succeeded, and the proof been made against us, we would 
have been incarcerated for years ; but our heavenly 
Benefactor was again watching over us, and deterred us 
from committing a great crime, for which we now desire 
to render praise and adoration to His holy name forever. 
When we look back at our madness we can now see the 
handwriting of a merciful God wonderfully displayed in 
our temporal and moral salvation, as well as His merciful 
kindness and long-suffering to usward ; for instead of 
cutting us off He has borne with us, and drawn us to 
Him with loving kindness ; and with His love and 
mercy bestowed upon us, when justice demanded that 
we be numbered among the damned, has humiliated us 
and made us feel to be the meanest and least of all the 
objects of His love ; and in the midst of our revelings 
we have been made to feel that we truly represented the 



362 APPENDIX. 

dog that had returned to his vomit, and the sow that 
was washed to her wallowing in the mire, and that it 
would have been better for us not to have been born. 

We could not see how God could be just and ever par- 
don such a vile and corrupt renegade as we had been 
from the faith once committed unto us ; hence we felt 
to be justly sinking down into the sloughs of despair, 
where God and His Christ would never visit us again 
with the comforting influence of His Holy Spirit. We 
spent many horrible hours and sleepless nights over 
these great sins and violations of our solemn promises to 
our God, who had ever been merciful and kind to us. 
We made great efforts with our romance to conceal our 
thoughts and troubles from mortal man, until one 
dismal night, when all sleep had forsaken us, and we 
felt to be sinking into deeper and deeper chasms of ruin, 
on account of disobedience and sin, and dared not pre- 
sume to couch ourself upon our knees and ask Him to 
have mercy upon us, fearing that He would strike us 
dead for mockery ; hence we called upon our dear wife 
to pray for us, hoping to have one more sweet commun- 
ion with our God through the intercessions of her 
prayers. After some hesitancy she knelt by our bed at 
a late hour of the night, and supplicated a throne of 
grace in our behalf, which afforded us some relief ; for 
we had great confidence in her Christian piety. She 
had ever lived, since our first acquaintance with her, an 
humble and devoted Christian, and was baptized after 



APPENDIX. 363 

our marriage, into the Primitive Baptist church, by- 
Elder Jesse Tomhn, in the year 1857, at Mt. Parod, Dale 
county, Alabama. At the baptism of our wife we were 
wonderfully wrought upon to follow her into the liquid 
grave, and thus fulfill the commands of our Lord ; but 
our God had ordered it otherwise, and we now feel to 
see the handwriting of an all-wise and merciful God in 
staying our desire. We had not been sufficiently 
humiliated and killed to the love, pride and arrogance of 
tlie world. The vesture that God had prepared for us 
would not cover our ponderous and self -exalted dimen- 
sions. His clothing would not meet around our chest ; 
His pants would only reach to our knees ; His shirt did 
not have a sufficiency of gaudy ruffles ; His plume was 
too small for our cap. We could never go to the church 
and relate a fabulous, uncertain dream, caused by hallu- 
cination or a disordered brain. We must have the 
miraculous experience of a Paul, and the Christian piety 
and fortitude of our dear old mother, before we could go 
to the church ; we must tell a very exalted experience, 
and be revered among all the saints ; our influence and 
grandeur must rival the armies of Antichrist ; we must 
not be humiliated in our professional aspirations with 
such lowliness as we witnessed among the Old Baptists. 
If we ever joined them, our example must exalt their 
standing of pride and arrogance. But, thanks be to our 
God, He has trimmed us down and humiliated us, until 
His vesture is too large for us ; it laps over our chest ; 



364 APPENDIX. 

His pants extend beyond our feet ; His shirt is too 
gaudy, and His plume is too large, and we feel 

That if we are a saint at all, 
We surely are the least of all. 

Immediately after our madness that followed the re- 
sults of the war, and while we were in great trouble on 
account of our sins of commission and omission, we 
made several resolves to unite with our Fullerite or New 
School Baptist friends. We based our preference upon 
their popularity and influence, together with what is 
known among popular circles as liberality, to-wit : they 
could carry the offering of Abel in one hand, and the 
offering of Cain in the other ; they could lug the world 
and the church simultaneously. This was very pleasant 
to us, for we were much enthused with notoriety. We 
hoped for a few years to find a home among these 
people ; and, be it known, occasionally we were wonder- 
fully fed by them. But the more we attended their re- 
vival meetings, and the more we associated with them, 
the more we likened them to Judas of old, who betrayed 
his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. We found that only 
part of the ministry had been given to them, as was to 
Judas, and that they only preached a part of the truth ; 
just enough to ensnare the poor, feeble lambs of God, 
and then rifle their persons with the false theory of sav- 
ing souls with means and instrumentalities, based upon 
Mr. Fuller's false theory of a universal atonement and a 
special application. This, to our mind, was more absurd 



APPENDIX. 365 

than the theory of our Methodist friends, who were 
rivaling our missionary friends for supremacy in arro- 
gance and numbers ; who claimed that God was wooing 
and beseeching the people to be saved, and that He was 
willing and anxious for them to be saved, but denied 
Himself the ability to save them ; having delegated to 
them the power of spiritual free and moral agency, and 
denying the foreknowledge of God, who comprehended 
the eternal condition of all men, individually and 
collectively, before the world began. This drove us 
from our Missionary Baptist friends, and we were 
compelled to go back to our first love. We had 
been raised by a Primitive Baptist mother, and had 
learned to love and revere the Old Baptists from our 
childhood, and could not regard them as being any 
other than the church of Christ ; yet there was a part of 
their theory that neither our natural nor spiritual vision 
could comprehend ; therefore we could not do otherwise 
than suspect their inconsistency, and our conscience for- 
bade our uniting with them until we could comprehend 
their doctrine in all of its bearings. We could not see 
how it was possible for God to be just, and not give all 
the human family an equal chance for heaven and im- 
mortal glory ; yet we dared not call in question His fore- 
knowledge and predestination. How it was that God 
would create a set of human beings, and predestinate 
according to foreknowledge that a certain part of them 
should stand saved in the eternal mind of Jehovah, and 
the other part stand lost in the mind of Jehovah from 



366 APPENDIX. 

the foundation of the world, and yet God be just, was 
something that our benighted mind could not compre- 
hend. 

It was in the year 1870 that we were undergoing this 
dreadful scourge, and hailing between so many opinions, 
when John C. Burress, (editor of the " Notasulga Uni- 
versalist Herald") who was an able Universalist minis- 
ter, put up at our entertainment ; and be it known, we 
never entertained a more refined, Christian-like gentle- 
man. He preached two interesting discourses upon the 
subject of the atonement, and to some extent removed 
our great hobby-horse, in regard to the injustice of God 
in creating human beings, and at the same time His 
foreknowledge, knowing that they would be eternally 
lost. He preached a universal atonement, and a final 
universal application. He taught that all violators of 
God's holy law must be punished, until punishment was 
adequte to offence, either here or hereafter, after which 
all would finally merge into the body of Christ ; and he 
quoted as proof, "For as in Adam all die, even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive." — I Cor. xv. 22. 

This was soul-cheering to us, and harmonized with our 
natural reason, and had the semblance of justice incor- 
porated in it. We embraced this doctrine for about 
twelve months, but made a complete failure in harmo- 
nizing it with the word of God, and were compelled to 
discard Universalism or the Bible. We chose the Bible 
as our better counselor. 

During all these years of conflict we never failed to at- 



APPENDIX. 367 

tend the meetings of our Old Baptist friends, when it did 
not seriously conflict with other business ; and, be it 
known, we were wonderfully fed by them ; and espe- 
cially were we entertained when they preached upon the 
subject of experimental religion, and dwelt upon their 
travail from nature's night to the glorious light and lib- 
erty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Under this kind of 
preaching our eyes were always bathed with involuntary 
tears, in spite of our efforts to suppress them. At that 
time the Old Baptist's pulpit was filled at " Baptist Rest," 
Brundidge, Pike county, Alabama, once a month, by 
our much esteemed and revered brother in Christ, Eld. 
E. T. Webb, now of Winnsborough, Wood county, 
Texas, under whose able ministration we have many 
times been made to rejoice and render praise and adora- 
tion to our God. He preached the glorious doctrine of 
salvation by grace ; unconditional salvation on the part 
of the creature man, a special atonement, and applied 
the blood of Christ especially to those whom the Father 
gave the Son, and chose in the Son before the world be- 
gan. He preached that all the human family had an 
undivided interest in Jesus Christ in our temporal salva- 
tion, and Christ lived up to the requirements of the law 
to a jot and tittle, and that in a law sense he died for the 
sins of all alike, and as a result of that lif e and death all 
are the beneficiaries of the blessings pertaining to this 
life ; but that He shed his blood especially for the be- 
liever, or those whom the Father gave the Son before 
the world began. This was a glorious doctrine to the 



368 APPENDIX. 

believer, and put the believer's eternal salvation above 
peradventures. But we could not reconcile this theory 
with the justice of God in suffering the others to be lost, 
although we loved and cherished the doctrine, and it 
seemed to harmonize with the word of God. 

At this time we were engaged in the drug business, 
associated with general merchandise. Our capital was 
small, and we made a very unfortunate purchase of goods 
in New York. Immediately after which, the cotton- 
worm devastated the cotton crop of the entire country, 
and we made a complete failure in liquidating the liabili- 
ties that were against us, and had to compromise the 
debts with our merchandise, store-house and homestead. 
This humiliated our pride ; and rather than be chagrined 
by our former rivals, we determined upon emigrating to 
Texas, where we could form new associations, and per- 
haps live a more quiet and Christian-like life, and be 
freed to some extent, from former wicked associations 
and influences that surrounded us, who knew too much 
of our wicked career for their company to be pleasant to 
us. We boarded the train at Troy, Alabama, January 
3d, 1872, with our wife, four children and two sisters-in- 
law with limited means, to try the realities of our pro- 
spective western home. We located at Clayton, Panola 
county, Texas. We found but few Old Baptists in that 
community, and no visible organized church. We 
finally found six or eight in the surrounding country 
that were holding letters. We put our wits to work to 
constitute them into a church, and soon succeeded. The 



APPENDIX. 369 

first pastorate supply was Elder Peter Miller, then Elder 
Wyatt Coleman, and next Eld. J. B. Brassfield, all of 
whom have passed from time into eternity. But our 
God in His wisdom sent us an able supply from Linclon 
county, Mo., in the person of Elder Charles Holcomb, 
under whose ministration we have had many refreshing 
seasons of comfort and delight. Our heart to-day pul- 
sates with emotions of untold joys in commemoration 
of the ever-to-be-remembered first Sunday in June, 1876, 
when our dear brother, Eld. Charles Holcomb, unfolded 
to us in thrilling and lucid arguments, sustained by the 
word of God, our great puzzle, and plainly showed us 
how God could be just and exclude the children of wrath 
from all eternity from heaven and immortal glory. His 
text was, " All that the Father giveth me shall come to 
me ; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast 
out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own 
will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the 
Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which He 
hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it 
up again at the last day," — John vi. 27, 29. He proved 
beyond cavil that no one could come to Christ except 
those whom the Father gave the Son in the covenant of 
grace between the Father and the Son before the world 
began. He proved that the Father carried the humanity 
of the Son all through the days of old, and that the Son 
stood a Lamb slain for those that the Father gave him all 
through the days of antiquity, up to his advent, death, 
burial and resurrection. He divided the office of the 



370 APPENDIX. 

humanity and the office of the divinity of the Son. He 
made the humanity of Christ to be a man of sorrow and 
acquainted with grief, (Is. liii. 3,) and that his humanity 
made all the changes that our Arminian friends accuse 
the divinity of making. He proved that his divinity was 
without variableness or the shadow of turning ; the same 
yesterday, to-day and forever. He proved that Christ 
had not, would not, reject an applicant whom the Father 
gave him in the covenant of grace before the world be- 
gan, but that he had and would reject the others, they 
being the children of wrath and fitted to destruction, and 
that the devil was their spiritual father. He then argued 
that the Son did not come to do the will of his humanity; 
if so, he would encircle the whole human family in his 
embrace, and save them with an everlasting salvation, 
just as you and I would do : but that he came to do the 
will of the Father, and that he must do the will of the 
Father according to agreement, regardless of the oppo- 
sition of his human will ; and that his Father's will was, 
that of all that he had given him he should lose nothing, 
but should raise them up again at the last day ; and that 
" again " implied that they had once been in heaven and 
in Christ, and that they came down from heaven in 
Christ ; for the Father chose them in him before the 
world began. He then took up a Bible two-seed doctrine, 
and showed the difference between the vessels of wrath 
and the vessels of mercy, and quoted, " And I will put 
enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy 



APPENDIX. 371 

seed and her seed : it shall bruise thy head, and thou 
shalt bruise his heel." — Gen. hi. 15. 

He proved that all flesh was as grass, and that these 
two seeds had no allusion to the flesh, but that they 
represented the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of Anti- 
christ, or Satan ; and the seed of the woman represented 
the church or Spirit of Christ ; and that the seed of the 
serpent represented the spirit of Satan, or Antichrist. 

He illustrated with the allegory of the potter's clay : 
"Nay but, man, who art thou that repliest against 
God % Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, 
Why hast thou made me thus ? Hath not the potter 
power over the clay, of the same lump to make one ves- 
sel unto honor and another unto dishonor ? " etc. — Eom. 
ix. 20, 21. 

He claimed that the potter represented God, and that 
the clay represented Adam and Eve, and that the vessels 
represented them and their posterity ; and that as the 
potter had the power and right to make any kind of ves- 
sel out of his clay, and that no one had the right to say 
whether he should make vessels of honor or dishonor, in 
like manner God had the right to do as He chose with 
His own, and no one had the right to say to Him, Why 
hast thou made me thus ? He then proved that it was 
absolutely necessary for God to create or make vessels of 
wrath, in order to make or create vessels of mercy ; for 
He could not have one without the other ; hence He 
made both, and all for His own glory. He then argued 
that there was no difference in the clay out of which they 



3^2 APPENDIX. 

were made, but that the difference was in their spiritual 
contents that fitted them for wrath or for glory ; and 
that the vessels of mercy were by nature just like the 
vessels of wrath, but that God had made them suscept- 
ible to the reception of the Spirit of Christ, and had not 
the others, but had fitted them to destruction. 

He made the thing so plain that our whole soul was 
entranced with rapturous emotions of unspeakable joy. 
Our great enigma was explained away ; and the church 
of Christ, with all its doctrine and glories, was in vivid 
and transparent splendor before our spiritual vision. It 
was all that our moral nature could do to suppress our 
weakness, for we felt like shouting aloud and rendering 
hallowed praises to our God. We went home humiliated 
at our former stupidity, but rejoicing in the light and 
liberty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

But ! had we ever experienced that change of affec- 
tions that is so peculiar to the people of God, so that we 
could offer ourselves to them and live with them ? We 
were made to tremble with doubts ; but we knew that 
we loved them, for we had the witness entwined around 
our soul. Our soul was filled with supplications and 
prayers ; and if we were deceived, we prayed to be un- 
deceived. If the vision of our youthful days was a 
myth, we prayed to have it obliterated from our 
memory. If it was real, we begged our Heavenly Mas- 
ter to make it manifest to us. We approached our 
couch at night with humble supplications to our God 
for mercy, and for a manifestation of His will toward 



APPENDIX. 373 

us. We finally dropped into a tranquil sleep, and our 
former vision again appeared to us : the same aperture 
again was opened in the housetop, and the same three 
dead babes upon the white sheet or litter gradually de- 
scended and lay by our side, just as they left us in Janu- 
ary, 1853. They lay in silent death for a few minutes, 
and then began to revive. Their rosy lips and tinted 
cheeks were soon restored to their wonted color, and 
their dancing feet and clasping hands were again in the 
air, rendering seeming praises to their God. In this con- 
dition they gradually ascended through the aperture in the 
housetop, and were soon enraptured in ethereal frui- 
tion. 

When the morning dawned, and our peaceful slumbers 
were arrested by the busy wife and prattling children, we 
were seized with bright visions of eternal day, and our 
soul was made to rejoice in hope of the glory that awaits 
the chosen of the Father, the redeemed of the Son and 
the quickened of the Holy Spirit. But these heavenly 
ejaculations were soon quelled with the fears of our hope 
being based upon a fabulous and uncertain dream, and 
for days we were halting between fear and hope. Our 
burden of fear gradually diminished, and was ultimately 
supplanted at times by an insurmountable desire for bap- 
tism, encouraged by the positive injunction, "If ye love 
me, keep my commandments." But, in the name of 
heaven's GTod, how could we ever get up moral fortitude 
to relate the sad story of our miserable and wicked life 
to so good a people, and ask them to claim Christian fel- 



374: APPENDIX. 

lowship with us ? We appointed several times when we 
would perform this painful task ; but when the time ar- 
rived we were overwhelmed with our insignificance, and 
dared not mock our God. 

We finally predestinated that we would approach the 
church through the medium of a written account of 
what we hoped the good Lord had done for us in the 
pardon of our sins, feeling that it would be impossible 
for us to approach the church in person, on account of 
our own weakness and want of Christian fortitude. We 
felt to know that the emotions of our soul would over- 
whelm us, and that we would not be able to give utter- 
ance to our convictions. Hence we wrote a condensed 
history of our exercises of mind, and how and what we 
hoped the Lord had done for us in the pardon of our sins, 
in which case we asked the church to act as a set of 
jurors, and say whether these exercises were real or im- 
aginary, upon whose decision we intended to act. 

We handed this document to our wife, with a request 
that she read it carefully, and then hand it to the pastor 
of the church, upon condition, however, that if she 
did not have Christian fellowship for such a relation as 
we had written, she burn the document at once. We 
left her with our heart heaving with anxiety and our 
eyes bathed in tears. 

When we returned she had committed our cherished 
medium of communicating our travail of soul and desire 
for baptism to the church to the flames, and told us that 
things did not work with her this way, and that she 



APPENDIX. 375 

thought we had better wait for the Lord's time, when 
He would make us able to give satisfaction to the church 
in a very few words. This, to us, was a piercing dagger 
to our poor, afflicted soul. We felt to know that our 
wife had no fellowship for us, and that her quick 
spiritual discernment had detected the very thing that 
had been giving us so much trouble, and that all was a 
delusion and that our wife had only acted faithful with 
us, in warning us of our great dilemma. We then 
abandoned the idea for a time of ever offering ourself to 
the church for membership, but determined that we 
would discharge our Christian duties as best we could 
outside of the church, until we could have stronger 
manifestations of the power and goodness of God in the 
pardon of our sins. During many years the members 
of the churches to which we had lived adjacent had at 
times expected us to ask for membership, and had often 
talked with us upon the all-important subject to us. 
Finally Eld. Charles Holcomb, who was, and now is, 
pastor of Mt. Carmel church, sought a private interview 
with us, when we related some of the trials and exercises 
of our soul, and how we had sought admission into the 
church through the medium of a written communication 
and what our wife did with it, and how we were dis- 
couraged, and our great humility of soul on account of 
unworthiness. He offered us great and soul-cheering 
encouragements, by telling us that our doubts, fears and 
trials were characterized by every child of grace, and 
were one of the strongest evidences of our having been 



376 APPENDIX. 

born again ; and that by all the evidences that were 
manifest in our case, it was our duty in following the 
commands of our Lord to at once submit to the ordi- 
nance of baptism. He regretted exceedingly the course 
that our wife had pursued ; but we forbade his speaking 
of it in her presence. But since this is all in the past, 
we feel to thank our God that it thus happened unto us ; 
for, to us, we feel to see the handwriting of a merciful 
and all- wise God, as a forerunner to the task that we 
have just completed ; for while we were laboring under 
these soul-trying troubles we were wonderfully impressed 
with the importance of writing a book, in which we felt 
at times that we could demonstrate to every heaven- 
born soul, whether in the church, in the world, or in 
Babylon, the beauties, grandeur and glory of the church 
of Jesus Christ, together with the everlasting covenant 
of redemption and salvation by grace before the world 
began. We felt also to be able, with the aid of the 
divine light that was at times before our spiritual vision, 
to expose the errors, heresies and dogmas of the 
churches of Antichrist, so as to cause many of the true 
Israel of God to come out from among them. " Where- 
fore come out from among them, and be ye separate, 
saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I 
will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and yo 
shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord 
Almighty."— II Cor. vi. 17, 18. 

We prayed over this impression for many months, 
asking our God that if it be of man, to erase it from the 



APPENDIX. 377 

vocabulary of our thoughts ; but that if it be of God, to 
inspire us with language and thoughts to consummate 
the grand and glorious undertaking ; and the thoughts 
that are condensed in this book constitute our success or 
failure. 

During the five years that we have been engaged in 
this work, we have many times been overwhelmed with 
the duty of baptism, and powerfully propelled at times 
to go forward in the discharge of this solemn ordinance; 
but we had resolved to wait until the completion of our 
book, and then if our manuscript was received and en- 
dorsed by the Elders of the church, that we would be 
more reconciled to the genuineness of our conversion, and 
would go forward in the discharge of what we hoped to 
be our duty. We therefore completed the task, but 
with much opposition. Our wife and children vigorously 
opposed us. They conceived an idea that our work 
would be too meager to stand the test of criticism, and 
would ultimately retard our standing in society. But 
we determined, regardless of wife, children, money, pro- 
fessional lustre, or the devices, opinions or doctrines of 
men or devils, to follow the biddings of our Lord. 

Soon after the completion of our manuscript, we offered 
ourselves to the church for membership and baptism, at 
Mt. Carmel, twenty miles east of Henderson, where our 
wife's membership had been since the constitution of 
the church at that place ; and to our great joy and com- 
fort she manifested much satisfaction and interest in our 
baptism. When we presented ourself before the confer- 



378 APPENDIX. 

ence, praying for membership, we hoped to be able to 
tell much of our travail of soul ; but we were overcome 
by the emotions of our soul, and our utterance failed us; 
but we were received, and baptized by our revered 
brother, Eld. Charles Holcomb, July 1st, A. D. 1883. 
We called for and were granted letters of dismission for 
ourself and wife on the day of our baptism, and with six 
others we were constituted into Siloam church, in the 
city of Henderson, on the 4th day of July thereafter, 
since which time we have had some seasons of joy and 
consolation with the people of God, mingled with many 
doubts, fears and sensations of un worthiness. 

" With Christ in God your life is hid ; 
These words at once thy fears forbid ; 
For he must God himself dethrone, 
Who takes that life, with Jesus one. 

Though but a spark, 'tis heavenly fire ; 
May dwindle oft, but ne'er expire ; 
Till brighter than the solar rays, 
It shines through everlasting days. 

Earth, hell, and sin, that hateful name, 
Together strive to quench the same ; 
Yet still it burns, his power to show, 
In spite of all that hell can do. 

God is its shield, He guards it well, 
When tempests rise and billows swell ; 
'Tis hid by God, where none but He 
By his omniscient eye can see. 



APPENDIX. 379 

' Tis that blest hope that never dies, 
Beyond the reach of hell it lies ; 
' Twill flourish and immortal be, 
When death is lost in victory. 

Shall this, O Christian, make thee say, 
I'll serve my lusts and from thee stray ? 
Nay, rather thus : My God, to thee 
Let every power devoted be. " 






Dr. S. M. CARLTON, 

PHYSICIAN, SUpON & OBSTETRICIAN. 

Tenders his professional services to the citizens of Henderson and surrounding 
country. 

Having availed himself of all the advantages of the best schools in the United 
States, together with an experience of twenty-eight years at the bedside, he hopes to 
merit your confidence and patronage. He will avail himself of all the advantages of 
the age in the concentration of medicines, so as to secure potency of action and con- 
venience of administration. 
N. B.— Special attention given to Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children. 



CARLTON'S GREAT SOUTHERN CHILL TONIC. 

It is no patent nostrum. It is strictly sanative and free from poison. It removes 
malarial poison from the system, and builds up and purifies the blood. It establishes 
free and healthy digestion in Dyspepsia, and corrects the slothful secretions and ex- 
cretions of the great depurators of the human economy— the Liver, Kidneys and Skin. 
It will cure Hepatitis, or any morbid engorgement of the Liver that is curable. Every 
package is warranted to cure Chronic Chills, if directions are faithfully carried out, or 
money returned. Price $5, strictly in advance. Sent by registered letter, P. O. Order, 
or in person. Medicine sent by return mail — each package accompanied with full 
directions. 

CHRONIC DISEASES. 

Having made the many Chronic Diseases that humanity is heir to a specialty for 
many years, he will confidently treat all cases, of both sexes (that are curable) entrusted 
to his care, at $5 per month, strictly in advance, and the medicine will be sent by return 
mail. If not mailable, your family Physician or Druggist can supply the deficiency at 
a small cost. Please write plainly your name, post office, County and State, together 
with all the symptoms in your case : if there is pain in the head, back, loins, kidneys, 
bowels, chest, uterus, between the shoulders, in the right or left sides, if the Liver or 
Spleen is enlarged ; if there is any cough ; what kind of sputa ? If the bowels are 
constipated or laxed, the color of stools, if the food digests well, if there are cold feet 
and hands, palpitation of the heart, difficult breathing, nervous debility, accompanied 
with uterine difficulties, prolapsus, inflammation, ulceration, retroversion, fluor albus, 
[whites], difficult or painful menstruation, cessation of menses, difficult and painful 
micturition, etc., etc. He will also treat Eheumatism, Neuralgia, Piles, Scrofula, 
Dropsy, Erysipelas, sore legs, etc., etc. Address 

S. M. CARLTON, M. D., 

HENDERSON, RUSK CO., TEXAS. 
REFERENCES: County Officials of Panola and Rusk Counties. 



Note.— I do not propose to cure the sick with kid gloves, nor with aristocratic airs, 
but with Sanative Medicines, based upon correct theory and practical observations. 

S.M. C. 



fiM 





reilsii 


sra^^ 1 ^^^^ 





w 



